Putin directs Russian nuclear drills as Trump summit on hold

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday oversaw exercises for the country's strategic nuclear forces that included practice missile launches. The exercises came after his planned summit on Ukraine with US President Donald Trump was postponed.

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The Kremlin said that as part of maneuvers involving all parts of Moscow's nuclear triad, the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was tested from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwestern Russia and the Sineva intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea. The exercise also involved Tu-95 strategic bombers firing long-range cruise missiles.

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During the exercise, the qualifications of military command structures were tested, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov told Putin via video link that the exercise was aimed at “working out procedures for authorizing the use of nuclear weapons.”

Putin, sitting alone at a round white table, looked at large screens that showed Gerasimov and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov. All three would be involved in launching nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict.

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While Putin stressed the maneuvers were planned in advance, they came hours after President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his plan for a quick meeting with Putin in Budapest was on hold because he didn't want it to be a “waste of time.”

The decision to meet in Budapest, which Trump announced last week, came after a telephone conversation on Monday between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

On Tuesday, Lavrov made clear that Russia opposes an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump, meanwhile, has spent the year shifting his position on key issues in the conflict, including whether a ceasefire should precede long-term peace talks and whether Ukraine can reclaim land seized by Russia during nearly four years of fighting.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed on Wednesday that the planned Putin-Trump summit needs careful preparation.

“Nobody wants to waste time: neither President Trump, nor President Putin,” Peskov told reporters. “These are two presidents who are used to working efficiently and with high productivity. But efficiency always requires preparation.”