It comes as the Russian president looks set to launch an invasion of Ukraine, with 150,000 troops piled on the country’s borders. Mr Putin reportedly oversaw the exercises on screen alongside his ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The missiles successfully hit all sea and land targets during the exercises, according to Russian media.

The Kremlin said: “All missiles hit their targets, confirming their performance goals.”

The drills, which included Tu-95 bombers and submarines, were reportedly ordered to begin under instructions from Mr Putin.

A ballistic missile was launched from a site in northwest Russia.

Another was fired from a submarine in the Barents Sea, which reportedly hit targets thousands of miles away in the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Such test launches, of course, are impossible without the head of state. You know the famous black suitcase and the red button.

Footage released by RIA showed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov telling Mr Putin: ‘The main purpose of the exercise is to train the actions of the strategic offensive forces aimed at ensuring a guaranteed defeat of the enemy. .”

And now the tests are raising fears among Western leaders.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called the nuclear drills “a very sophisticated exercise with strategic nuclear forces.”

He added that it “makes things complicated in that you might have an accident or a mistake”.

It also comes after thousands of residents were forced to flee an area in eastern Ukraine after artillery fire.

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Russian political expert Clint Ehrlich claimed that Mr Putin’s army was running a secret “superweapons” program capable of attacking the United States.

Mr Ehrlich told Express.co.uk: “There are other super weapons they have developed, including a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

“It was actually something the United States considered during the Cold War and it was considered too dangerous.

“Because the fear is that if the nuclear reactor at the bottom of the missile malfunctions, you can just have this thing start circling the earth again and again and again spewing nuclear waste all over the place.

“Russia has developed this as a potential weapon.”