Russia announces its own counter-nuclear exercise
ALBERT
INTERNATIONAL PACIFIST BULLETIN
Following the French nuclear exercise attended by President Macron and the commencement of NATO's Steadfast Noon nuclear exercise, Moscow announces its military response. The sequence is very clear: every Western exercise has its counter-move, and Europe is increasingly edging closer to direct nuclear conflict.
France kicks off: Operation Poker
Before NATO, it was France. In March 2026, the Armée de l'air conducted Operation Poker, an exercise simulating an aerial nuclear attack with around 50 aircraft, including Rafale B fighters armed with ASMPA-R missiles (scale replicas, without real nuclear warheads). The exercise, which Paris had kept secret for years, is now openly presented as a deterrent against Russia.
On 19 May 2026, the Russian Ministry of Defence announced the start of a three-day nuclear forces exercise, running from 19 to 21 May, officially described as training for the preparation and employment of nuclear forces under conditions of threatened aggression. The exercise involved more than 64,000 military personnel and over 7,800 units of equipment, including more than 200 missile launchers, over 140 aircraft, 73 surface vessels and 13 submarines, of which 8 were strategic missile submarines. Participants included the Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern and Pacific Fleets, Long-Range Aviation, as well as units from the Leningrad and Central Military Districts. The exercise featured live launches of ballistic and cruise missiles, including the launch of an intercontinental Sineva missile from a submerged nuclear submarine and an intercontinental Yars missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome. Of particular significance was the joint component with Belarus: for the first time, Presidents Putin and Lukashenko jointly oversaw, via video link, a joint training exercise on the management of strategic and tactical nuclear forces, including the preparation and employment of nuclear weapons deployed on Belarusian territory. As part of the exercise, nuclear warheads were transferred to field storage sites in Belarus for the Iskander-M tactical missile system, with Belarusian crews engaged in reception and loading procedures. The announcement came just hours before Putin's departure for a visit to China and at a time of intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks, while the New START treaty had expired in February, formally removing the last limits on the nuclear arsenals of the two major atomic powers.
However, the French nuclear forces wanted to demonstrate a new show of strength in October with a test of a new nuclear ballistic missile (without an explosion, fortunately).
Emmanuel Macron personally observed the operations. On 6 October, the French President witnessed the launch exercise of an M51 ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine off the coast of Brittany from the deck of a frigate. "To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be strong," Macron declared. It should be noted that the French nuclear device is not integrated into NATO: the force de frappe ("strike force") responds exclusively to the President of the French Republic.
NATO follows: Steadfast Noon
On 13 October, Steadfast Noon, NATO's annual nuclear exercise, commenced in Italy, with 17 participating countries and a scope similar to previous editions. NATO emphasises that "no real weapons are being used" and that the exercise "is not linked to global events and is not directed against any country". Obviously, this is not true as NATO's computers contain targets to strike in Russia, and there is close collaboration between NATO and Ukraine at the JATEC centre to test Russia's response capability to attacks.
Mark Rutte embellished Steadfast Noon with a speech. The NATO Secretary General stated: "NATO is a defensive Alliance. This exercise helps us ensure a safe, secure, effective, and credible capability to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression. It also sends a clear message of unity and determination". Rutte also recorded a video message from the Volkel airbase in the Netherlands. Rutte obviously did not dwell on the fact that NATO includes the "first nuclear strike" in its calculations, namely the first use doctrine (see the notes section).
The Russian response announced by TASS
But it was yesterday that the news arrived that is set to change the picture. As expected, Russia reacts. And it does so with an announcement that sounds like a declaration of counter-nuclear exercise.
Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's Permanent Representative to the OSCE, stated yesterday in a meeting of the Permanent Council in Vienna, as reported by TASS: "NATO has launched its annual Steadfast Noon exercise to train the management of nuclear weapons. The manoeuvres involve troops from the 17 member states of the alliance. NATO aircraft are conducting nuclear missions, moreover in close proximity to Russian borders. Naturally, we are compelled to prepare an adequate military response to such provocations. Any state that respects itself would behave the same way in our place".
Polyansky then added a question that weighs heavily: "I wonder if Brussels understands that such actions could lead to direct nuclear conflict on the continent".
The Russian response, therefore, is not yet an exercise with specific name, date, and location, but is an official declaration of military preparation that, in the language of deterrence, equates to an announcement of countermeasure. Moscow is saying: if NATO simulates the use of nuclear weapons, we are preparing militarily to respond.
PeaceLink had predicted everything
Nuclear exercises are not "routine". When France simulates a nuclear attack, when NATO trains 17 countries to mount atomic bombs on fighters, when Russia declares it is preparing a military response, the psychological threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is lowered. What is repeated in exercise becomes a military option among others.
In the published on 2 October 2026, PeaceLink had already explicitly written about the NATO nuclear exercise, Steadfast Noon:
"Such NATO exercise is more than predictable that it will trigger, as a countermeasure, a similar nuclear exercise by Russia, with dangerous targeting of the targets to be struck on NATO territory, including Italy".
The campaign Stop Steadfast Noon calls on the Italian prefectures to respond: are there civil protection plans in case of nuclear emergency? Are citizens informed? The response, so far, has been silence. But while governments remain silent, exercises continue, and Russia announces its countermeasure.
We had predicted it and it has come true. Unfortunately.
What to do? Spread the nuclear crisis simulation, the war game Risiko developed by PeaceLink and send it to parliamentarians.
During the Cold War, NATO developed the strategy of "flexible response", which allowed for the possibility of resorting to nuclear weapons even in response to a conventional, chemical, or biological aggression by the Warsaw Pact, to compensate for the numerical superiority of Soviet conventional forces. Now that conventional superiority no longer exists, yet FIRST USE has been maintained. NATO has repeatedly rejected proposals to adopt a formal commitment not to use nuclear weapons first.
The Soviet Union formally adopted a No First Use (NFU) policy — that is, the commitment not to use nuclear weapons first — in 1982.
The announcement was made officially by then Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in June 1982, via a message sent to the Second Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Disarmament.
In the 1980s, Cold War tensions were at an all-time high. The USSR's move was largely diplomatic aimed at presenting the Soviet bloc as peaceful compared to the United States.
The United States and NATO refused to adopt a similar policy. The Western doctrine was based (and still is) on "flexible response", which allows for the possibility of using nuclear weapons first in the event of a crushing conventional attack by the Warsaw Pact.
This commitment to NFU in the East remained formally in effect until the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, in 1993, the newly formed Russian Federation officially abandoned the No First Use doctrine, adopting a military strategy that allowed for the use of nuclear weapons even in response to a conventional attack that threatened the very existence of the Russian state.
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