The Western media report the case in a biased way, trying to describe the Russian attitude as a kind of threat to the West. Writes Lucas Leiroz
In response to provocations recently made by Kiev and NATO, the Russian government began nuclear drills on 26 October. The exercises are intended to test the combat capability of Russian forces and assess the conditions for the eventual need to use this type of military apparatus. Faced with the constant threats imposed by the enemies, the Russian attitude sounds even moderate and the Western condemnation of this measure shows hypocrisy.
Russian nuclear forces made strategic training operations in the last week of October. The weapons involved nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles as well as submarines – obviously, without any contaminating substance. The simulations focused on situations of massive attacks in response to possible aggressions against the Russian territory. Images were published on Russian government’s official media showing military actions in the Barents Sea, the Arctic, Plesetsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Far East region.
“Under the leadership of … Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with ground, sea and air strategic deterrence forces, during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place”, it is possible to read in the Kremlin’s statement about the drills. In another part of the document, it was said that all the planned targets were hit during the simulated attacks, having, therefore, a satisfactory conclusion of the tests, indicating that the Russian nuclear forces have strong combat expertise and high precision.
Evidently, nuclear exercises are nothing new in international society. Annually, the world powers carry out simulations of extreme combat. NATO itself had previously scheduled similar drills for 30 October. However, the current international context emphasizes the significance of these maneuvers, considering that global tensions are rapidly escalating to uncertain directions.
Russia would certainly conduct new nuclear exercises this year at some point, but the precise choice of date of October 26 was a response to recent Ukrainian provocations. Russian intelligence recently pointed out that Kiev is manufacturing and planning to use “dirty bombs” – non-nuclear weapons containing radioactive material – against the Ukrainian population. The aim would be to accuse Russia of having launched a “tactical attack”, considering that the effects of tactical nuclear weapons and dirty bombs are similar. With this, Kiev would try to justify greater Western participation in the conflict.
American, British, French and Turkish officials received calls from the Russian Ministry of Defense to talk about the case, but they did not adequately respond. Russia took the situation to the United Nations Security Council, yet the international society remained inert. Therefore, there was no other alternative to dissuade Ukraine than through a direct demonstration of force, and with this goal the exercises were called as soon as possible.
Before Russian investigations on dirty bombs were completed, Kiev had already shown interest in escalating the conflict into nuclear war. In early October, during a videoconference with Australian partners, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly asked NATO to bomb Russia with atomic weapons. Prior to that, the neo-Nazi regime had already tried to cause a radioactive leak at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant through large-scale bombings that were witnessed by international observers.
So, Russia really ignored many provocations before making the decision to call for massive attack simulations. And the mere fact of having responded to provocations only with military drills, without a real escalation, demonstrates that there is a constant Russian concern to decelerate the conflict as much as possible and avoid situations that could lead to a catastrophe.
However, even so, the Western media continues to report the case in a biased way, trying to describe the Russian attitude as a kind of threat to the West. Reuters, for example, said days before the drills took place that they would represent a “challenge” for the West to “spot the difference between the exercises and real thing”, making it seem that the drills would be an indication that Russia has some “intention” to actually use such weapons.
In the same vein, the Financial Times stated that the Russian choice to conduct such maneuvers would be an extreme measure by Vladimir Putin to respond to alleged “humiliations” that his troops would be receiving on the battlefield during the so-called Ukrainian “counteroffensive”, which several military experts have already proved to be a baseless invention.
In fact, this type of narrative reinforces the rhetoric that Russia would have no justification for hardening its actions in Ukraine. Kiev has initiated provocations and Moscow is responding moderately. The destabilizing posture started with NATO and its Ukrainian proxy and reporting Russian actions without considering this fact only shows Western hypocrisy.
