MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has observed live launches of intercontinental ballistic missile systems that can carry thermo-nuclear warheads during a military drill across the country’s arctic region.
The president visited the national defense control center in the capital Moscow on Thursday to watch a video transmission of the launches of the intercontinental ballistic missile systems, known as RS-24, RSM-50 and Sineva, according to the defense ministry.
The systems simultaneously employed more than 200 launchers.
The test launch came during a military drill that involved 12 thousand Russian troops, five nuclear submarines, 105 aircraft and 213 missile launchers in Russia's west Arctic seaports.
The war game, dubbed the Grom-19 or Thunder-19, came to an end on Thursday.
During the viewing, Putin was accompanied by his defense minister Sergei Shoigu, who said the armed forces were simulating “tasks in an armed conflict and nuclear war.”
Shoigu said that the armed forces were deploying “highly accurate nuclear weapons and weapons based on new physical principles.”
He explained that cruise and ballistic missiles were fired from the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk by submarines of the northern and Pacific fleets.