WAR GAMES

But the limited numbers of warheads and delivery vehicles such as submarines that they committed to under the New START treaty are still enough to devastate the world, and Putin has made clear Russia will continue to upgrade its arsenal.

Moscow has warned it could withdraw from the treaty if it believes that an anti-missile shield the United States is building in Europe, which Moscow says may be able to intercept Russian missiles within several years, has become a serious threat.

Several tests of the Bulava, which began in 2004, were failures, but Dmitry Medvedev, then President, said the missile was ready for use after two successful test launches from the Yuri Dolgoruky in late 2011.

"The navy has absolutely no grounds to doubt the reliability of this ... new sea-launched missile," Putin's chief of staff Sergei Ivanov, a former defence minister, said on Thursday, state news agencies reported.

Putin also presided at the inauguration on Thursday of a new icebreaker to service oil platforms, part of a series of events that seemed choreographed to display Russia's aspirations as a sea power.

Shoigu reiterated plans, announced by the Defence Ministry last week, for naval exercises in the Mediterranean Sea that he said would be "the biggest in the history of the country".

Russian officials have given no indication that the exercise planned later this month is linked to the situation in Syria, where Russia maintains a modest supply facility that is its only military base outside the former Soviet Union.

Russia has shielded President Bashar al-Assad by vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed to pressure or push him from power during nearly 22 months of violence, but says it will evacuate its citizens from Syria if necessary.