Vladimir Putin has presided over a rehearsal to deliver what the Kremlin described as a “massive” nuclear strike, including the test launch of multiple ballistic missiles. While Russia holds similar rehearsals every autumn, Wednesday’s show of force came just hours after Moscow’s withdrawal from a significant nuclear test ban treaty and as its invasion of Ukraine approaches its second winter. Footage broadcast on state television showed the Russian president overseeing the annual exercises, dubbed “Grom”, via video call. The purpose of the drill was to “deliver a massive nuclear strike... in response to an enemy nuclear strike”, said defence minister Sergei Shoigu. The Kremlin said a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from a test site to a target in Russia’s far east, a nuclear-powered submarine launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea and Tu-95MS long-range bombers test fired air-launched cruise missiles. Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, has passed a bill in parliament that would revoke its ratification of a key nuclear test ban treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Though it has never formally come into force, the CTBT has helped deter nuclear weapons testing around the world, with only North Korea conducting an explosive nuclear bomb test this century. Ukraine has said Russia’s withdrawal of its CTBT ratification was an attempt at “nuclear blackmail”. Mr Putin, who will be sent the bill for final approval, has said revoking Russia’s ratification would “mirror” the stance of the US, which has signed but did not ratify the nuclear test ban. Video footage of Wednesday’s military exercise released by the Russian defence ministry showed the land- and submarine-launched missiles piercing the night sky with loud roars, while nuclear-capable bomber aircraft departed from an airfield under the cover of darkness. “Under the leadership of the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, training was conducted with the forces and means of the ground, sea and air components of the nuclear deterrent forces,” the Kremlin said in a statement. “During the training, practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place. The tasks planned in the course of the training exercise were fully accomplished,” it said. The latest developments have raised widespread concerns that Moscow could resume nuclear testing in attempts to discourage the West from continuing to offer military support to Ukraine. Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said earlier this month that Moscow will continue to respect the ban and will only resume nuclear tests if Washington does it first. On Wednesday, Mr Ryabkov said the Russian foreign ministry had received proposals from the US to restart discussions regarding strategic stability and arms control matters. However, he pointed out that, given the current political climate, Moscow does not view it as feasible. “We aren’t ready for it because the return to a dialogue on strategic stability... as it was conducted in the past is impossible until the US revises its deeply hostile policy course in relation to Russia,” Mr Ryabkov told reporters in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

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The Department of Justice is likely to attempt to have former President Donald Trump incarcerated if he’s convicted following the indictment laying out 37 charges against him in relation to his handling of classified national defence information. National security lawyer and George Washington University law professor Kel McClanahan said that the department will probably “want to go for incarceration” in the case of Mr Trump, according to Insider. Mr McClanahan said that the evidence in the indictment that was unsealed on Friday afternoon is intended to show that Mr Trump “is a kingpin who knowingly broke the law, endangered national security, endangered nuclear weapon security, [and] endangered other countries’ national security”. The charges include 31 counts of “willful retention” of documents under the Espionage Act. The consensus among most legal experts commenting on the indictment appears to be that Mr Trump is in serious legal jeopardy. If Mr Trump is convicted, he could be sentenced to decades in prison. A former assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, Sarah Krissoff, told Insider that “to the extent that there’s a conviction here, the Department of Justice is going to want to be seeking a real sentence” because of the “nature of the conduct, how long it lasted, his involvement, the involvement of other people, working allegedly at Trump’s direction”. She noted that if Mr Trump is convicted, the sentence would depend on the judge, which seems likely to be Trump-appointee Aileen Cannon in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Mr McClanahan noted the novelty of possibly having to find a proper way to put a former president behind bars. He questioned how the authorities would go about imprisoning someone “who has a Secret Service detail and who has national security secrets bouncing around his brain, such that if someone holds a shiv to his neck, he’ll reveal the location of our missile bases”. He added that Mr Trump might become a “foreign intelligence gold mine for most countries on earth” if he’s imprisoned. Mr McClanahan sees it as more likely that if Mr Trump is convicted, he would be sentenced to house arrest with an ankle monitor. But Ms Krissoff told the outlet that “Trump can share that information that is in his head whether he is incarcerated or not incarcerated. So I’m not particularly concerned that, as a citizen, the incarceration will trigger the sharing of information that wouldn’t be shared otherwise”. Fox News legal commentator Jonathan Turley didn’t hold back after the indictment was unsealed. Mr Trump showed classified documents to others twice in 2021, the legal filing states. Mr Turley, the Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said on Fox News on Friday afternoon that “it is an extremely damning indictment”. “There are indictments that are sometimes called narrative or speaking indictments. These are indictments that are really meant to make a point as to the depth of the evidence, there are some indictments that are just bare bones,” he added. This is not one of those indictments, Mr Turley said. “The Special Counsel knew that there would be a lot of people who were going to allege that the Department of Justice was acting in a biased or politically motivated way. This is clearly an indictment that was drafted to answer those questions. It’s overwhelming in detail,” he continued. “The Trump team should not fool itself. These are hits below the waterline. These are witnesses who apparently testified under oath [and] gave statements to federal investigators, both of which can be criminally charged, if they’re false.” “Those witnesses are directly quoting the president in encouraging others not to look for documents or allegedly to conceal them. It’s damaging,” Mr Turley said. “This is not an indictment that you can dismiss. There are a lot of people who are testifying under oath, and they’re saying highly incriminating things,” the attorney added. Speaking about the images from Mar-a-Lago of the boxes of documents found in a ballroom and a bathroom, in addition to other less-than-ideal places, Mr Turley said, “It’s really breathtaking. Obviously, this is mishandling. Putting the classified documents into ballrooms and bathrooms borders on the bizarre. And these are the types of pictures that hit you below the waterline in a trial. “It’s hard to show a picture of these boxes surrounding a toilet and saying ‘we really acted responsibly,’” he added, going on to note that “the government is bringing dozens of counts – they only have to land one of those punches”. “Keep in mind that every one of these counts is coming with a substantial potential sentence,” Mr Turley said. The lawyer said that the Trump legal team has “to run the table, they have to take out every single count, or you’ve got a 76-year-old man looking at a potentially terminal sentence”. Read More Trump news – latest: Trump ‘plotted to hide documents from FBI after showing military docs to visitors’ Trump kept classified documents from seven agencies including CIA, DoD, and NSA Jonathan Turley tells Fox News the Trump indictment is ‘extremely damning’ and a ‘hit below the waterline’

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