Moscow, Feb 18: Russian President Vladimir Putin will oversee huge military drills involving “strategic forces” on Saturday, Kremlin informed on Friday. This comes at a time when there is growing tension at the country’s border with Ukraine, Al Jazeera reported.
According to a statement by the Russian defence ministry the exercise will include multiple practice launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The air force, units of the southern military district, as well as the Northern and Black Sea fleets will also participate in the massive nuclear drills.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko also said he would also oversee Saturday’s military drills along with the Russian leader. The Russian moves comes after US President Joe Biden warned on Thursday that Russian invasion of Ukraine could now happen anytime now as nearly 150,000 Russian troops – including about 60 percent of the country’s overall ground forces are now concentrated near the Ukrainian borders.
However, Kremlin insisted that it has no plans to invade Ukraine while demanding that the US and its allies keep ensure that Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations never join the NATO military alliance, nor deploy weapons in Ukraine and pull back NATO forces from Eastern Europe.
US and its European allies have rejected the Russian demands, following which Moscow threatened to take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West continued to stonewall.
