Russian nuclear-powered submarine fires missiles during Pacific drills

JUST IN: Russia test-fires cruise missiles from a nuclear-powered submarine during Pacific drills, striking a target 1,200km away, Moscow says.

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine just test-fired cruise missiles across the Pacific.

Moscow says the strike hit a target twelve hundred kilometres away. That's the boat here, surfaced, launch systems on deck, flags flying. And this is the moment of launch, a missile climbing out of the sea with a smoke trail you could track for miles.

The timing is doing a lot of work. These drills land while tensions with Japan are already raw. Tokyo formally protested Russian military exercises near the disputed Kuril Islands back in August, and those islands have kept the two countries from ever signing a peace treaty after World War Two. So this isn't just target practice, it's a message with a return address.

Twelve hundred kilometres is the number to sit with. From those waters, that range covers a lot of coastline that isn't Russian.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.