Russia began the most ambitious test of its strategic bomber fleet in almost a quarter of a century today.

Up to 20 bombers are being sent into the air with full combat payloads to carry out live firing exercises of their cruise missiles. It is the largest display of Russian air power since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Officials said that the bomber runs would test Russia's readiness to deploy its nuclear deterrent. The week-long drill, part of a broader military exercise codenamed Stability-2008, takes place against the background of heightened tensions with the West after Russia's war with Georgia in August.

"During these exercises, for the first time in many years, the crews of Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bombers will fly missions carrying the maximum combat payload and fire all the cruise missiles on board," Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Drik told RIA-Novosti news agency.

The flights involve more than a third of Russia's combined fleet of Bear bombers and Blackjack supersonic aircraft. The Air Force is stepping up its combat training regime, scheduling 350 live-firing drills for the second half of this year.

Lieutenant Colonel Drik said that the latest exercises in Russia's northern regions were unprecedented in scope and would also involve Tu-22M3 Backfire strategic bombers, fighter jets, and interceptor aircraft.

A former Air Force commander, General of the Army Pyotr Deynekin, said that Bear bombers had carried out live-firing tests of their entire cruise missile capabilities only once before, in 1984, at the height of the Cold War. Blackjack bombers had never previously conducted such tests because it was too expensive, he said.

The bombers will fire their missiles at targets located on a training range, Lieutenant Colonel Drik said. The goal was to "exercise the strategic nuclear deterrence during the exercises".

The Stability-2008 manoeuvres, conducted jointly with neighbouring Belarus, are being watched closely by Western military analysts as Russia flexes its muscles across the globe. Nato fighter jets have repeatedly scrambled to shadow Bear bombers flying close to European and US airspace in the past year after Vladimir Putin ordered round-the-clock patrols to resume for the first time in 15 years.

In a move that threatens a re-run of the 1962 missile crisis, Russia's military has recently talked up the prospect of opening a base in Cuba for its strategic nuclear bombers as a response to the setting up of America's anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. Two Blackjack aircraft landed in Venezuela last month for the first time in what its anti-American president Hugo Chavez called a "warning" to the US.

The Kremlin has also ordered its nuclear-powered warship Peter the Great and a submarine destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko, to take part in war games in the Caribbean with Venezuela, Russia's first naval mission to Latin America since the Cold War ended.

In a calculated show of defiance to Nato, the vessels passed through the Strait of Gibraltar at the weekend in only the second Russian naval deployment in the waterway since the Cold War. They were en route to Libya and Syria, both traditional ports of call for Soviet warships.

Russian marines practised landings under fire at the weekend in exercises on the country's Far East coast as part of Stability-2008. Ships and submarines from the Russian Pacific Fleet, backed by air support, also took part in the engagement.

Russia says that the month-long large-scale military exercises, which continue until October 21, are intended to rehearse strategic deployment of its armed forces, including the "nuclear triad" of air, sea and ground missiles.

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