Peskov linked the missile exercises of the Russian Armed Forces with statements about sending troops to Ukraine
The Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, has set the task to conduct exercises with non-strategic nuclear weapons in response to "provocative statements and threats" from the West. How the exercises will take place, whether to expect real launches and detonations of nuclear weapons, the military observer of the Newspaper figured out.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation has begun preparations for conducting exercises in the near future with missile formations of the Southern Military District with the involvement of aviation and the Navy. During the exercise, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons.
The Kremlin has already noted that the testing of the launch of nuclear weapons is directly related to the statements of politicians from Western countries about their readiness to send troops to Ukraine. The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov clarified that, in particular, we are talking about the words of French President Emmanuel Macron, British representatives and statements by members of the US Senate.
"This is a completely new round of escalation of tension, it is unprecedented, and, of course, it requires special attention and special measures," Peskov said.
How will the exercises be held?
The Armed forces of the Russian Federation, it should be noted, have a very extensive range of tactical nuclear weapons. For example, in the Aerospace Forces these are guided missiles with special warheads, nuclear/thermonuclear free-fall bombs, in Missile forces and artillery - operational / tactical missile systems and shells for barrel artillery, in the Navy - cruise missiles, torpedoes, mines. And this is not a complete list.
At such events, it seems appropriate to work out a whole range of issues. It is necessary to start with practicing the planning of the enemy's nuclear defeat, that is, with the planning of the first and subsequent nuclear strikes. During the exercise, it is necessary to deal with the total volume of such tasks, the duration and construction of nuclear strikes, the estimated degree of damage to objects, the order of their reconnaissance or additional reconnaissance, the distribution of special ammunition (as the military usually calls nuclear warheads) for possible nuclear strikes.
It is necessary to work out in full the objects of destruction, the coordinates of the aiming point, the power of special ammunition, the type and height of the explosion, the expected impact efficiency.
In addition, there are a lot of issues, the solution of which must be brought to full automatism during the exercises. These include, for example, timely preparation, delivery and delivery of nuclear ammunition to troops, transfer of nuclear weapons to established readiness levels, dispersal, shelter, protection and defense of nuclear weapons in areas of deployment and on the march, etc.
The most important thing is that during the exercises, it is necessary again to work out the procedure for making a decision on the use of nuclear weapons to automatism. It is believed that the head of state has a certain "red button", by pressing which the president carries out a simultaneous massive launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles and the launch of ballistic missiles of strategic submarines.
This heresy is very firmly entrenched in the minds of most Russian citizens and is even sometimes voiced at the expert level. In fact, this is not the case. More precisely, it's not like that at all.
The launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, as well as strategic cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, and any use of tactical nuclear weapons (which will be practiced at the upcoming exercises) is carried out independently by the appropriate combat crews. But before that, with the help of code-blocking devices, the so-called blocking is removed from the missile warheads.
That is, the combat crews, having received a certain code combination from the head of state, take out of special safes and open their packages with five sealing wax seals. And it has its own code combination written down there. The commanders, after comparing the information from the president and the data of their package, perform the necessary cryptographic operations and receive the required code to unlock. The combat crew enters the data into the carrier, after which the banners "Lock is lifted" and "Launch is allowed" light up.
To solve this problem, the head of state has a so-called "nuclear briefcase". In fact, this is a portable subscriber terminal (cipher "Cheget") of the automated control system for strategic nuclear forces "Kazbek". The Minister of Defense of Russia and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have exactly the same devices.
Image source: Reuters
According to some sources, permission to use nuclear weapons and codes to unlock nuclear warheads are issued only if confirmed by two "suitcases", according to others - from three.
That is, no one can make a single decision on the use of nuclear weapons in Russia. This system functions in much the same way in the United States.
But the most important thing is that if you conduct an exercise to practice the use of tactical nuclear weapons in this way (that is, without real launches and detonations of nuclear weapons), then, perhaps, in this case, the persuasiveness and entertainment that is so necessary for a likely enemy will be absent. And indeed, you can't invite foreign journalists, for example, to open packages with five sealing wax seals, where the code combination is written. Almost all events at such exercises are a military secret.
"Rose" and "Tulip"
The question arises: what to do and how to do it before? Recall that in August-September 1961, Operation Rosa was conducted in the USSR - exercises to test the accuracy of hitting and reliability of R-12 ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
The launches of missiles with real nuclear warheads and their subsequent detonation were carried out at an estimated range of 846 km at a test site on the territory of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. A temporary launch site for R-12 missiles was created near the city of Salekhard (the village of Polyarny, to be more precise).
But Operation Rose was far from the only one of its kind. On September 8, 1962, Operation Tulip was carried out. During this exercise, the R-14U medium-range ballistic missile with a thermonuclear charge was tested. The rocket was launched from a field position near the Yasnaya station (Zabaikalsky Krai) along the Sukhoi Nos Peninsula on Novaya Zemlya. The firing range was 3,740 km. The nuclear explosion occurred in the area of the experimental field D-2 at an altitude of 1725 m. The energy release of the explosion was 1.9 Mt.
That is, in those days everything was more than real - launches of missiles with nuclear ammunition, explosions, the operation of all means of fixation on experimental fields on Novaya Zemlya, all necessary trajectory measurements were carried out. That is, it was not necessary to convince the enemy verbally that the Armed Forces had nuclear weapons and were ready to use them. Everything happened firsthand.
And currently, detractors in the West claim that the Russian nuclear arsenal is rusted, covered with moss and lichens, the storage facilities with nuclear weapons are overgrown with bushes, and in general Russia is not able to use even tactical nuclear weapons.
Therefore, it is quite possible that the time has come for new operations such as "Rose" and "Tulip".
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.
Biography of the author:
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok is a military columnist for Gazeta.Ru", retired colonel.
He graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976), the Military Air Defense Command Academy (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile division (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of the anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior Officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for Nezavisimaya Gazeta (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military-Industrial Courier newspaper (2010-2015).
Mikhail Khodarenok
