A large area from the eastern Barents Sea to the Ural Mountains is now closed off for civilian aviation as the bombers will launch tactical missiles against on-ground training targets.
The nuclear-capable bombers participating are flying north from the Kola Peninsula and Siberia.
The exercise is simultaneously happening in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the Defense Ministry states.
“Long range aviation crews will work out air patrols in a given area, flight missions along the route in various meteorological conditions, and they will also perform tactical launches of weapons towards established targets at training ranges.”[…]
In its statement on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry does not details which weapons, cruise missiles, are to be tested from the strategic bombers.
In the West, military experts are not jumping to conclusions that Russia’s exercise is anything worthy of concern. For now at least.
“Whether this is a long-planned routine exercise or a symbolic demonstration of force ahead of NATO’s summit in Vilnius, is hard to say. It could well be a combination,” says Kristian Åtland, senior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Läs artikel