The Sun
RUSSIA has staged huge live-firing drills with more than 1,000 tanks near its border with Ukraine.
The latest show of strength by Vladimir Putin comes amid high tension between Moscow and the West amid fears the Kremlin is planning to invade its neighbour.
The latest ground battle exercises were staged around 30 miles from the border from the pro-Moscow rebel-held Luhansk region of Ukraine.
Video and pictures show soldiers from Russia’s southern military district firing high-powered weaponry at the Kadamovsky firing range in the Rostov region.
On Monday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Putin in a phone call of his “deep concern” about the Russian military build-up close to Ukraine, and that “serious consequences” will follow in the event of invasion.
In the drills, soldiers performed fire training in the field with a variety of high-powered weaponry including automatic grenade launchers, said TV Zvezda, run by the Russian defence ministry.
More than 100 crews of BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles equipped with 100-mm guns performed exercises of live firing from short stops and in motion at distances up to 1,000 metres, according to the Russians.
Motorised riflemen completed shooting exercises using AK-74M assault rifles and grenade launchers.
They “mastered the skills of camouflaging shooting positions”.
Meanwhile, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow will respond with military force if Nato allowed Ukraine to join the military alliance.
His comments are the first warning of military action since Russia moved around 90,000 troops to the Ukrainian border.
He told state news agency RIA Novosti: “A lack of progress towards a political, diplomatic solution to this problem would mean that our response will be military and military-technical.
“There will be confrontation. There’s basically no trust in Nato as an alliance.
“We’re no longer playing these kinds of games and don’t believe in Nato’s assurances.”
READY FOR WAR
Ryabkov also threatened to deploy intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe which were last mobilised in large numbers by both sides in the Cold War in the early 1980s.
When they were first deployed, the rockets brought European cities into much closer striking range, adding an even more terrifying dimension to the nuclear arms race.
But a historic treaty signed between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan eventually saw the two sides destroy nearly 2,700 of them.
America withdrew from the pact in 2019 after complaining for years of alleged violations revolving around Russia’s development of a ground-launched cruise missile.
