US-Led Astral Knight 2024 Military Drills Saber-Rattle Near Russia’s Border

Amid bellicose rhetoric from Paris and London regarding the possibility of sending soldiers to Ukraine and massive NATO drills near Russia’s borders, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces on Tuesday announced that it was preparing drills to practice the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

The US-led multinational integrated air and missile defense exercise Astral Knight 2024 kicked off near the border with Russia’s Kaliningrad region, Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh stated at a briefing on May 7.

With scheduled live-fly operations across the territories of Poland and the Baltic countries, the two-week drills are set to involve around 5,000 personnel from six participating nations – the US, UK, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Denmark and Greece will observe the exercise.

Over 50 aircraft will be involved in the drills that are “part of the Defense Department's large scale global exercise 2024 program," according to the Pentagon press secretary.

The Astral Knight 2024 saber-rattling comes in lockstep with the torrent of bellicose statements from Western officials about deploying troops to Ukraine.

Russia parried by announcing tactical nuclear missile drills on Monday. The training exercises will be held in response to "provocative threats by Western nations against Russia," Moscow underscored.

The forthcoming exercises involving missile units of the Southern Military District will feature aviation as well as naval forces, and are to be held on instructions from Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The drills are aimed at increasing "the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to carry out combat missions," according to the ministry's statement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's statements on the escalation in Ukraine:

🔺The Russian exercises should be viewed in the context of recent belligerent statements by Western officials and destabilizing actions by NATO.

🔺We hope that exercises to test the use of non-strategic…

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) May 6, 2024

Amid the West's escalating anti-Russian hysteria, the current US-led exercise, like NATO's large-scale Steadfast Defender drills, are a clear indication that the alliance is preparing for a "potential conflict" with Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday.