Russian President Vladimir Putin has started to get more serious about its nuclear arsenal and military readiness. This week, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it would hold a major test of the country’s Strategic Rocket in this week’s military exercise.

According to Reuters, the three-day military drills will involve a vast number of military personnel and war machines. The three-day military exercise will involve over 12,000 military troops from various Russian military branches, 213 missile launchers, 15 surface vessels, 105 aircraft, and 5 submarines.

These latest Russian military drills come at a time when the Russian President has warned of a new arms race between the United States and Russia.

The military drills to include missile launches

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the latest military drills will also include a number of missile launches. The missile launches were confirmed by Major General Yevgeny Ilyin, the head of the Russian Defense Ministry International Cooperation Department. The Russian General said that the two ICBMs (Intercontinental ballistic missiles) will be fired at practice launch sites at the Kura testing range in the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East. Additionally, the Russian General also added that military drills will also feature strategic bombers firing their cruise missiles at the test targets.

As mentioned earlier by The Washington Post, the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet will also include in the latest military drills. The military drills will start from October 15 to October 17.

According to The Washington Posts, the primary goal of the latest military exercise is to test the military readiness of the Russian military command structure.

Under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Defense Ministry has expanded the scope of its military drills in the past months amid growing tension with the United States and its allies.

In addition to the massive military exercise, the Russian President will also visit Saudi Arabia on October 14 to meet the Saudi's King and attend the first meeting of the Russian-Saudi economic council.

President Putin and the Russian missile arsenal

The country currently boasts the widest inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles in the world. The Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, the Russian military branch that controls the country's land-based ICBMs, can perform a number of strategic missions, which include anti-access and aerial denial (A2D2), tactical missile strike, and delivery of strategic nuclear weapons. Currently, the country’s Strategic Rocket Forces maintains an estimated over 286 ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) in its arsenal deployed in both mobile and silo-based platforms.

Under President Vladimir Putin, the Russian military has gone a number of modernization efforts, which resulted in the developments of new ICBMs as well as a new breed of cruise missiles.

One of the products of Putin's massive military buildup is the Sarmat, a modern thermonuclear ICBM designed to defeat the US defense shield. The Sarmat was also designed to counter the US Prompt Global Strike System, the huge American military effort to deliver a devastating, precision-guided conventional and nuclear strike anywhere in the world. This nuclear-armed ICBM is one of the six new strategic weapons that were unveiled by Putin during his annual address to the Russian Federal Assembly.