The entire Russian Pacific Fleet was put on high alert on Friday for snap drills that will involve practice missile launches in a massive show of force amid tensions with the West over the fighting in Ukraine.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the goal of the war games was to test the capability of Russia’s armed forces to mount a response to aggression.
Along with the missile launches, the drills will also involve nuclear-capable strategic bombers and other warplanes besides the naval aviation of the Pacific Fleet, Shoigu said.
The Russian military has concentrated the bulk of its forces on the front lines in Ukraine but also continued conducting regular drills across Russia to train its forces and demonstrate their readiness.
The Russian Defense Ministry released videos showing warships and submarines sailing off to take part in the maneuvers. As part of the drills, marine units deployed to amphibious landing vessels and coastal defense missile systems moved to firing positions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the war games as part of regular training intended to “maintain the necessary level of the armed forces’ readiness.”
Shoigu noted that the maneuvers’ scenario envisages a response to an adversary’s attempt to make a landing on Sakhalin Island and the southern Kuril Islands. In February, Moscow said a Russian anti-submarine destroyer chased off a U.S. submarine near the Kuril Islands.
Japan asserts territorial rights to the Kuril Islands, which it calls the Northern Territories. The Soviet Union took them in the final days of World War II, and the dispute kept the countries from signing a peace treaty formally ending their hostilities.