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Russia is ready for World War III! This is indicated by two developments that have come at a time when relations between the US and Russia are at its lowest point in years following the collapse of a ceasefire in Syria.
The first development is that President Vladimir Putin has reportedly issued an emergency decree to Russian diplomats of all ranks to “bring relatives home to the Motherland”.
Administration staff, politicians and public sector workers have been ordered to take their children out of foreign schools immediately.
Russian political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky told the Daily Star: “This is all part of the package of measures to prepare elites to some ‘big war’.”
The second development is that Topol missile, fastest in the world, was today launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea off the Russian coast as part of a series of ballistic tests.
Another was later shot from an island in the north-west of the country with its warhead hitting a simulated target, and a third missile – a nuclear-capable rocket – shot from a Pacific Fleet submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk, north of Japan.
The RS-12M Topol is a single-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile, which entered service in 1985.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has however accused the West of trying to portray his government’s military exercises as threats – claiming they are merely normal combat training manoeuvres.
Already, the fragile relations between Russia and the West has gone south. President Putin has just cancelled a visit to France, accusing President Francois Hollande of deliberately luring Moscow into vetoing a United Nations resolution on Syria and questioned whether Paris was doing the bidding of the US.