Russian President Vladimir Putin has overseen the annual nuclear drills of Russia's strategic nuclear forces at a time of heightened tensions with the West following the start of the war in Ukraine.
The United States has been notified of these exercises under the New Start arms treaty. These tests have been carried out as Russia has made baseless claims that Ukraine is planning to use "pollution bombs". Pollution bombs are explosive devices mixed with radioactive material.
Meanwhile, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has also sounded an alarm during a meeting of the council of heads of security agencies and secret services of the former Soviet Union countries.
"The risk of a world conflict remains very high," he warned.
"New risks and challenges for collective security are emerging, mainly due to a strong deterioration in global geopolitics," Putin said.
The head of the Kremlin turned his attention to Ukraine, accusing it of becoming an instrument of the foreign policy of the United States of America.
"Ukraine has lost its sovereignty," Putin said.
This meeting came after the Russian president oversaw exercises conducted by the country's strategic nuclear forces. In a statement, the Kremlin underlined that all objectives had been met and that the missiles had hit their targets.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed that Russian soldiers were practicing launching a massive nuclear attack in response to a possible hostile nuclear targeting.
Yars intercontinental missiles, submarines and Tupolev bombers were launched during the exercise. This comes amid a rather critical situation with Moscow constantly accusing Ukraine of planning to use a "dirty bomb", referring to a bomb with radioactive materials. But they have provided no evidence of this and it is widely seen in the West as a fabrication of a pretext by Russia to use banned weapons in the war.
The Kremlin has even increased the accusations, considering the presence of American troops in Romania, a danger for the country. To these claims of Moscow, NATO has responded, calling on Putin not to use false pretexts for escalating the war.
"The alliance will protect all allies", assures the military organization, underlining that it will not be intimidated in supporting Ukraine.