Russia tries to disrupt Biden's visit to Europe with nuclear blackmail – Ukrainian Defence Intelligence

The GUR writes about this on Telegram.

Ukrainian intelligence draws attention to the fact that the Russian Federation is starting large-scale exercises of strategic nuclear forces on the eve of US President Joe Biden's visit to Europe.

It is confirmed that they are preparing the strategic nuclear sea and land-based ballistic missiles and air-based cruise missiles for the launch.

As part of preparations for the exercises, they checked the Russian centralized combat control system. In particular, the combat control channels, the forces and means of the strategic nuclear forces are now at the highest levels of combat readiness, the crew of the strategic purpose missile submarine cruiser was given a combat order to exit the launch area, and the strategic nuclear forces are now at 24-hour combat readiness level.

The GUR also noted that an auxiliary control point of the long-range aviation command has been deployed at the Tambov air base.

"Such actions of the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation are an attempt to weaken international support for Ukraine and to hinder Joe Biden's visit to Europe, which is scheduled for February 20-22, by means of direct nuclear blackmail," the GUR concluded.

• Joe Biden will visit Poland on February 20-22.

• On February 16, the White House announced that the US president did not plan to visit Ukraine.