A360
Key Takeaways✦ Atlas AI
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Joint nuclear drills held by Russia and Belarus.
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Drills included intercontinental missile launch.
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NATO warns of "devastating" response to nuclear use.
Atlas AI
Russian and Belarusian forces conducted joint nuclear weapons drills this week, involving tactical and strategic nuclear assets across a wide geographical area. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw the exercises, which spanned from Eastern Europe to the Pacific, utilizing hundreds of missile launchers, warplanes, warships, and nuclear submarines.
The drills, which concluded on Thursday, May 22, 2026, included the launch of an intercontinental, hypersonic Yars missile that traveled 5,750 km (3,573 miles) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome to the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The exercises follow Russia's deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus in June 2023, a move enabled by a Belarusian constitutional amendment in 2022. Moscow also supplied Minsk with modified Su-25 fighter jets and Iskander-M ballistic missiles, reportedly storing nuclear weapons at the Asipovichi military range, approximately 200 km (124 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.
Both leaders stated the drills were intended to enhance the readiness of their nuclear forces and account for lessons from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested the drills could be a precursor to a new Russian offensive against northern Ukraine. However, analysts indicate that the current concentration of Russian forces in Belarus is insufficient for such an operation. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned of a "devastating" response if Russia were to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, with the drills coinciding with a NATO foreign ministers' summit in Helsingborg, Sweden.
