He's staged a huge exercise by simulating a massive response to a nuclear strike on Russia.
It involved Russia's missile triad - ground, sea and air-launched from hidden silos, trucks, submarines and high-altitude bombers.
Experts suggest it's a thinly veiled warning to NATO.
Russia says it has taken two eastern Ukrainian towns, and open-source data indicated that Moscow's forces were advancing at their fastest pace in at least a year amid signs the conflict is drawing in new players such as North Korea.
The two-and-a-half-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what Russian analysts say is its most dangerous phase as Moscow's forces advance, North Korea sends troops to Russia, and the West ponders how the conflict will end.
Russia said its forces had seized control of the town of Selydove, which had a population of 20,000 before the war and had been under sustained attack over the last week.
