Russian Nuclear Submarine Simulates Missile Strike on Target 125 Miles Away

Russia's military has tested a nuclear submarine in the country's far east during exercises amid international tensions over its invasion of Ukraine and a warning by Vladimir Putin of his country's naval capabilities.

Russian media reported on Wednesday that the vessel Tomsk simulated the destruction of a mock enemy aircraft-carrier strike group 200 kilometers (125 miles) away using Granit anti-ship cruise missiles.

The vessel's commander, Roman Velichenko, said that the exercise was part of the testing of the Pacific Fleet's combat readiness that started on April 14, state news agency Interfax reported.

The drills have taken place off the coasts of Primorsky Krai, the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Sea of Okhotsk. They have involved 25,000 military personnel, 167 ships, including 12 submarines, 89 aircraft and helicopters.

Andrew Monaghan is global fellow at the Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, in Washington DC. He told Newsweek the exercises were intended to show that, despite Russian forces being heavily invested in Ukraine, "they still retain various other strengths elsewhere."

"Large parts of the navy are not involved against Ukraine, for instance, and so this kind of exercise reflects part of Moscow's deterrence," Monaghan said.

"All told, I think that the navy will assume a greater role in deterrence and defence over the short to medium term while Moscow reconstitutes its ground forces," he added.

Meanwhile, eight Tupolev Tu-22M long-range bombers performed a combat training flight "in the airspace over the neutral waters of the Seas of Okhotsk and the northern part of the Sea of Japan," the Russian defense ministry said on Wednesday.

During a meeting with his defense minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday, Putin said that the Pacific Fleet "can certainly be used in conflicts in any direction."

Shoigu said on April 14 that Russia needed to work on ways "to prevent the deployment of enemy forces in the operationally important region of the Pacific Ocean." The defense minister referred to the southern part of the Sea of Okhotsk and the southern Kuril Islands, as well as Sakhalin, a Russian island in the Pacific Ocean, north of Japan.

The Japanese assert territorial rights to the Kuril Islands, which Moscow took at the end of World War II. Disputes over the territory have strained ties between the countries.

Moscow said on Wednesday that the islands were part of Russia, despite Japan describing them as "illegally occupied" in a diplomatic document just released by Tokyo.

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the islands, off the coast of Hokkaido, were an "integral part of the territory of the Russian Federation on legal, including international, grounds following the results of World War II," RIA Novosti reported, "This is a reality that Japan cannot escape."