Russia has threatened to strike British military facilities and ordered its military to hold battlefield nuclear weapons drills in a move the Kremlin described as a response to comments from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on western troops fighting in Ukraine and from the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on using British-supplied weapons against Russia.
The Russian defence ministry said in a statement that troops from the southern military district would “practise the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons … in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation.”
The announcement came days after Macron said he would “not rule out” the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine and Cameron said it was up to Kyiv how it used British weapons, including against targets inside of Russia.
The UK ambassador, Nigel Casey, and his French counterpart in Moscow were summoned by the Kremlin on Monday.
The Russian foreign ministry issued a formal protest to Casey over Cameron’s recent statements that Ukraine had the right to use British weapons to strike inside Russia.
It said that the remarks made the UK a de facto party to the conflict. The statement came after a Ukrainian strike on Iskander short-range ballistic missile systems stationed in the annexed Crimean peninsula.
“Casey was warned that in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory with British weapons, any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and abroad” could be targeted, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The ambassador was called upon to reflect on the inevitable catastrophic consequences of such hostile steps by London and immediately refute the belligerent provocative statements of the head of the Foreign Office in the most decisive and unambiguous way.”
Russia’s southern military district borders Ukraine, from where the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has killed tens of thousands of troops and civilians, was launched two years ago.
The defence ministry said that the exercises were meant to “unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state”.
The drills would also include troops from the Russian air force and navy, the ministry said.
The Russian president has periodically warned that the country is ready to fight a nuclear war and regularly orders strategic nuclear drills, which typically employ intercontinental ballistic missiles. It is less common for Russia to hold tactical nuclear drills, which use weapons that have a lower yield and are meant to be used on the battlefield.
The Russian foreign ministry on Monday also said that Russia would develop new intermediate and short-range missiles, claiming that the decision was spurred by reports that the US was moving similar missile systems to Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
A Ukrainian government official dismissed the statements from the Kremlin, calling them “nuclear blackmail”.
“We do not see here anything new, except for the information effect and statements … Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin’s regime,” Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian intelligence, told national TV.
The nuclear drills will take place amid an escalation in diplomatic tensions between Russia and European countries. Germany recalled its ambassador to Russia on Monday days after accusing Moscow of launching a 2023 cyberattack on Germany’s ruling Social Democratic party.
“A short time ago you and I witnessed another unprecedented stage in the escalation of tensions initiated by the French president and the British foreign secretary,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman. “That was highly dangerous rhetoric.”
Peskov said that the drills were prompted by statements by Macron, as well as British and US officials, who have spoken about the potential for troops to be sent to Ukraine.
“They’ve spoken about a readiness and even an intention to send armed contingents to Ukraine; that is, to actually put Nato soldiers in front of Russian troops,” Peskov said.
In March, Putin told reporters that Russia believed there were already a limited number of Nato soldiers in Ukraine and warned that a direct conflict between Russia and the alliance would be “one step away from a full-scale third world war. I think hardly anyone is interested in this.”
Russia is currently pressing an offensive in eastern Ukraine, where it is gathering thousands of troops to launch an assault on the strategic town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region. On Sunday, it claimed to have captured the frontline village of Ocheretyne, and on Monday claimed it had taken two more villages, Kotlyarivka and Soloviove.
