The verification of "the application of a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to an enemy nuclear strike" was carried out in Russia. The exercises of the entire nuclear triad were held under the supervision of President Putin – and with the attention of the whole world. Especially NATO and the United States, which conducted their own nuclear exercises in parallel, but with their own peculiarities.NATO and Russia exchanged exercises of nuclear forces.
The North Atlantic Alliance just the other day held exercises Steadfast noon, and Moscow – "Thunder". Both of these exercises are annual and planned ("Thunder" is almost annual, there are breaks), but the information and political background in relations between Russia and the West this year, of course, can hardly be called ordinary.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced plans to hold the exercises at a press conference in Brussels on October 11. The main topic then was the response to large-scale Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure (in turn, announced and carried out in response to the explosion on the Crimean Bridge). The NATO Secretary General had to repeat several times that the exercises themselves are not related to the conflict and have been planned for a long time. At the same time, it was stressed that the cancellation of the exercises in the current situation "would send the wrong signal" – obviously, about the weakness or fear of the Alliance in front of Russia.
Regarding the planned nature of the exercises, Stoltenberg did not lie – they really took place in the middle of the second half of October in recent years. At the same time, meetings of the NATO nuclear planning group were announced, which meets annually to "synchronize" the strategy and plan of joint actions of the Alliance countries in the nuclear conflict. The UK's nuclear forces are largely subordinated to these calculations. France declares sovereignty in nuclear matters (and, at least, does not openly participate in such exercises, although there are grounds to suspect that it does so implicitly).
The main objective of the NATO exercise Steadfast noon is to work out joint actions of the Alliance's armed forces during the transition of the conflict in Europe to the nuclear plane. Of course, we are talking about a hypothetical conflict with Russia, because it is difficult to wage a nuclear war with someone else on the NATO continent.
The focus of the NATO exercises was the use of NATO's "common" nuclear arsenal – American thermonuclear free–falling bombs of the B61 family. These bombs are stored at six air bases in five countries: Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey and Italy (the latter has two bases). The total capacity of specialized storage facilities for them is about 350 bombs, but according to unofficial estimates, it is currently deployed in the area of one hundred bombs.
The peculiarity of this part of the American nuclear arsenal (in general, quite small both in number and in relative capabilities) is their advanced deployment outside the territory of the States and their focus on use from the aircraft of the allied countries. The ones that are formally non-nuclear countries. In this regard, these bombs are more of a political tool, the embodiment of the American "nuclear umbrella" over Europe, known as NATO Nuclear Sharing (the Russian Foreign Ministry officially uses the term "NATO Joint Nuclear Missions").
At the same time, in the home countries declaring their commitment to the regime of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and their non-nuclear status, ground and flight personnel of the assigned squadrons regularly undergo training for the use of nuclear bombs. The Steadfast noon exercises are also an annual "exam" for the European military. A clear contradiction with the provisions of the NPT here, according to the Americans, is that the nuclear bombs themselves are usually "under the control" of small American units responsible for their maintenance, and their direct delivery to carriers is possible only in the event of a nuclear war, when international non-proliferation treaties lose their meaning.
The weakness of such an explanation is obvious, and the Russian side regularly criticizes NATO Nuclear Sharing, as do many political forces in the home countries themselves. However, I must say that if they come to power, they usually forget about their criticism – from recent examples, you can take the German "Greens".
Moscow insists that Washington, unlike the USSR,/Russia has not brought nuclear weapons to its national territory and continues to keep part of its tactical nuclear arsenal in Europe operatively deployed together with carriers. This, in fact, is often the response of the Russian side to proposals for mutual reduction of tactical nuclear weapons: they say, "you will first follow the fundamental steps that we took thirty years ago, and then we will talk about control over TNW."
The American side, in turn, probably continues this practice in many ways precisely in order to have a "splinter", which Russia is interested in pulling out. Without this, it is generally accepted that the Russian arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons is much more quantitatively and more interesting qualitatively than the almost eliminated American one, and Moscow will not be interested in negotiating on the topic.
The B61 family of free–falling bombs deployed in Europe and stored at storage bases in the United States are the last tactical nuclear weapons of the United States, the rest has been eliminated. A program of modernization of these bombs is underway with plans to convert them into a controlled low-power modification of the B61-12 in the near future.
So this time, following the results of Steadfast noon, the Russian authorities, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, issued a message, the main topic of which was criticism of the NATO Nuclear Sharing system. However, at the same time, the very fact of the exercises was said quite unkindly – "yes, the practice is generally vicious, but nothing special happened this year specifically, we agree that the exercises are really planned."
Moreover, Moscow planned to respond not only with a communique – on October 26, a "training on the management of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation" took place. During this training, tasks were worked out, according to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, "the application of a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to an enemy nuclear strike." Although neither Vladimir Putin, nor Sergei Shoigu, nor the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov uttered the word "Thunder" in a brief video for the media, it was obvious that they were "widely known in narrow circles" exercises of the Russian strategic nuclear forces.
Their calling card is firing with the participation of all components of the nuclear triad (at the same time, as in the case of NATO, 90% of the activity of the exercises are invisible to the public). This time, the mobile launcher of the intercontinental ballistic missile of the Yars family complex, the strategic missile cruiser Tula with the Sineva missile and the Tu-95 missile carrier aircraft with cruise missiles were fired.
The contrast with the NATO exercises, which were minimally covered in the media (another property familiar to these people is too "toxic" for the public of many countries), is obvious: the most "spectacular" thing there is the dumping of small training bombs at landfills. But, on the other hand, the "Thunder" was not very loud.
Moscow not only did not begin to coincide with the testing of the new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile "Sarmat" (perhaps it is not ready yet), but in general used the most familiar, "simple" technique, without exotic and exciting novelties.
A striking example was shown here by the marine component of the triad – some of the fresh Boreyev-A could take part in the shooting, and not Tula, one of the oldest strategic boats of the fleet, a well-deserved, but, to put it mildly, stale project 667BDRM. There were no volleys, either there or on land.
Probably, this was due to the desire, as in the West, to hold exercises, to show that he did not save and did not abandon plans, but at the same time not to raise the degree of political tension once again. The statements of the American side before the "Thunder" also speak in favor of this. In parallel with reading out the basic accusations against Moscow "according to the methodology", the Pentagon speaker gave real compliments to Moscow for our times about the nuclear exercises. He said that Russia has notified the United States of plans to conduct exercises, they are routine and planned, and that in this aspect it fulfills its obligations on transparency and arms control.
Alexander Ermakov
