I found this article this morning:

Russia will test its ability to deploy tactical nuclear weapons, the Defense Ministry announced on Monday. The drill will be conducted “in the near future” and was ordered by President Vladimir Putin, the statement said.

Missile forces of the Southern Military District will be directly involved in the exercise. It will also require the participation of military aircraft and the Russian Navy, the ministry said.

The goal of the exercise is to iron out “the practical aspects of the preparation and deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” it added.

The military cited “provocative statements and threats against Russia by certain Western officials” as the reason for the drill. The troops will confirm that they can “ensure unconditional territorial integrity and sovereignty” of the nation, it added.

This is pretty much unprecedented, because Putin until now refused to even acknowledge the concept of tactical nuclear weapons, and claimed that any use of nuclear weapons will trigger inevitable escalation that will result in global annihilation.
This is obviously a “non-threat”, essentially a message to “someone” that they are about to cross a very thick red line and if they do not rescind, the response will be a counterforce nuclear attack.

That’s the first part of the message. The second part will be visible when we see the rockets used in the exercise; if they use stuff with cca 400km range, that means the response will be regional, within the Ukrainian theatre. If they use 1500+ km rockets, it means the response will be across the Europe.

ps.:
So far, Dmitry Medvedev made his own statement, very harshly stating that the nuclear response will be targeting the offending countries themselves, outside of the Ukrainian theatre. However, he is somewhat prone to hyperbole so I would wait for the weapons demonstration before formulating opinion about the intent.

Choir of the irresponsible

The number of scoundrels among the Western political elite calling for sending their troops to a non-existent country is expanding. Now it includes representatives of the US Congress, French and British leadership, and individual madmen from the Baltic states and Poland. They also call for the active use of their missile weapons, which they supplied to Bandera’s supporters, throughout Russia.
And this is not a spring aggravation, but a cynical calculation for political dividends. There is some kind of total degradation of the ruling class in the West. This class really does not want to logically connect elementary things. Sending your troops to the territory of b. Ukraine will entail the direct entry of their countries into the war, to which we will have to respond. And, alas, not in the territory of b. Ukraine.

In this case, none of them will be able to hide either on Capitol Hill, or in the Elysee Palace, or on Downing Street 10. A world catastrophe will come.
By the way, Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to understand this more than 60 years ago. But the current infantile morons who have seized power in the West do not want to understand.

And that is why today the General Staff began preparations for the exercises, including activities for practical testing of the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

New developments:

Russia issues military ultimatum to UK

Moscow will retaliate against British targets in Ukraine or elsewhere if Kiev uses UK-provided missiles to strike Russian territory, the Foreign Ministry told London’s ambassador on Monday.

Ambassador Nigel Casey was summoned to the ministry following remarks by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron to Reuters that Ukraine has the right to use long-range missiles sent by the UK to strike deep inside Russia.

”Casey was warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons on Russian territory could be any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and beyond,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting.

The US and its allies had previously qualified their deliveries of long-range weapons to Kiev by saying they could only be used on territories that Ukraine claims as its own – Crimea, the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Cameron’s statements to the contrary “de facto recognized his country as a party to the conflict.”

Russia understands Cameron’s comments as “evidence of a serious escalation and confirmation of London’s increasing involvement in military operations on the side of Kiev,” the ministry added.

Casey was urged to “think about the inevitable catastrophic consequences of such hostile steps from London and to immediately refute in the most decisive and unequivocal manner the bellicose provocative statements of the head of the Foreign Office.”