Putin Flexes Nuclear Capabilities at Delicate Moment for Ukraine

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia presided over a nuclear training exercise on Tuesday that included practice launches of ballistic missiles, a move widely seen as an attempt to show force amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin watched the annual training exercises of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces on a screen at the Kremlin, according to a government statement. Russia’s defense ministry said it launched ballistic missiles from a military base on the Kamchatka Peninsula near Alaska and from Naval ships in the Arctic Ocean. Long-range warplanes launched cruise missiles, the defense ministry added. It claimed that all the missiles hit their targets, but did not provide evidence or additional details.

Threats by Mr. Putin to use nuclear weapons have become a background theme of the war, and Tuesday’s nuclear training exercises come at a particularly delicate moment. The so-called victory plan introduced by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has received lukewarm support from allies, and his pleas for allies to let Kyiv use Western-supplied long-range ballistic missiles to strike deep inside Russia have so far gone unanswered.

On Tuesday, Mr. Putin promised to keep upgrading Russia’s nuclear arsenal — casting it as a matter of self-defense.

“We have no interest in being sucked into a new arms race, however, we will maintain our nuclear forces at an adequate level of preparation,” he said in remarks carried by Russia state media. “We will continue to perfect all of their components. We have the resources for it.”

In particular, Mr. Putin said, Russia will invest in a new generation of nuclear-armed cruiser submarines, long-distance bombers and mobile missile launchers.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin has repeatedly used military training exercises to emphasize his country’s nuclear prowess. Military analysts have said his focus on weapons of mass destruction is aimed at offering reassurances to a domestic audience amid the uneven performance of Russian troops in Ukraine, and at deterring Western nations from providing more advanced weapons to Ukraine.

The Kremlin has repeatedly signaled that moves by Western nations to send Ukraine ever more advanced weapons raised the risk of a direct confrontation with Russia. Ukraine has dismissed such concerns as a bluff, and pointed to the Kremlin’s lack of a discernible response to deliveries of Western weapons previously considered taboo, such as fighter jets, as evidence.