US bombers practiced nuclear attack on Russia, Defence Minister Shoygu says

Strategic bombers of the US Air Force practiced a possible nuclear strike on Russia in November, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu said, TASS reports. 

"During Global Thunder exercise conducted by the US Strategic Command, ten strategic bombers practiced the use of nuclear weapons against Russia from both western and eastern directions at a time," the Russian Defence Minister said. 

In November, the Russian military recorded a significant increase in the activity of American aircraft in the immediate vicinity of the Russian borders, he added. Thus, the US Air Force conducted about 30 sorties to the Russian borders in a month, which marked an increase by 2.5 times as compared with the same period in 2020.

“The minimum distance from our state border was 20 kilometers,” Shoygu stressed out.

Earlier in November, representatives for the Ministry of Defence reported that the intensity of aerial reconnaissance of NATO countries near the Russian borders in the Black Sea region continued growing. For example, three P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft of the US Navy took off from an airbase on Sicily (Italy) on November 12, a French C-160G Gabriel reconnaissance aircraft took off from an airbase in Romania, and two other US reconnaissance aircraft took off from airbases in Crete and Cyprus.