Russia to add 40 nuclear missiles this year—Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin, third left, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, fourth left, attend the opening of the Army-2015 international military show in Kubinka, outside Moscow, Tuesday, June 16, 2015. Putin said Tuesday the Russian military will receive 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles this year capable of piercing any missile defenses, a blunt reminder of the nation’s nuclear might amid tensions with the West over Ukraine. AP

MOSCOW, Russia — Russia’s military will add over 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles this year alone that are capable of piercing any missile defenses, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday in a blunt reminder of the nation’s nuclear might amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Putin spoke at the opening of an arms show at a shooting range in Alabino just west of Moscow, a huge display intended to showcase Russia’s resurgent military.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg accused the Russians of “nuclear saber-rattling,” and said that was one of the reasons the western military alliance has been beefing up its ability to defend its members.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, briefing reporters via teleconference from Boston, where he is recovering from surgery on a broken leg, called Putin’s announcement concerning.

“We’re trying to move in the opposite direction,” Kerry said. “We have had enormous cooperation from the 1990s forward with respect to the structure of nuclear weapons in the former territories of the Soviet Union. And no one wants to see us step backwards.”

He said Putin could be posturing.

“It’s really hard to tell,” Kerry said. “But nobody should hear that kind of an announcement from the leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about the implications.”

Russia-West relations have plunged to their lowest point since Cold War times over Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and support for a pro-Russia separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and the EU have slapped Russia with economic sanctions, and Washington and its NATO allies have pondered an array of measures in response to Russia’s moves.