Don't go too far in military support for Ukraine: Putin's message to the West

President Vladimir Putin’s message to NATO was simple and clear: don’t go too far with military aid to Ukraine, or you risk a conflict with Russia that could quickly turn nuclear.

As the war in Ukraine slowly turns in Moscow’s favor, Putin has said he does not need nuclear weapons to achieve his goals. But he has also said the West is wrong to assume Russia will never use them.

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The issue should not be treated lightly and superficially, Putin said in June, reiterating that Russia’s nuclear doctrine calls for using atomic weapons if it perceives a threat to its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Moscow’s nuclear message, as NATO allies struggle to bolster Ukraine’s exhausted and under-armed forces, heralds what could become the most dangerous phase of the war.

Exercises, threats and signals
Moscow has conducted exercises with its tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons in southern Russia and with its ally Belarus, where some were deployed in 2023. Russian Defense Ministry videos showed Iskander missile launchers, nuclear-capable warplanes and missiles launched from the sea.

The Kremlin has described the exercises as a response to Western considerations of deploying NATO troops in Ukraine and allowing kyiv to use longer-range weapons for limited strikes on Russian territory.

According to Heather Williams, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Russia tends to rely on nuclear threats and signals to signal its determination to win the war in Ukraine. Russian leaders may believe they have more to lose in Ukraine than NATO, and nuclear threats are a way to signal their determination to win the war in the hopes of scaring Western intervention.

Since launching his invasion of the country on February 24, 2022, Putin has repeatedly referred to Russia’s nuclear power to discourage Western intervention. The United States and NATO have criticized the nuclear threats, but have said they have seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture that would warrant a response.

After the initial setbacks in Ukraine, Putin said Moscow was ready to use all means to protect Russian territory, fueling fears that it could resort to tactical nuclear weapons to halt Kiev’s advance. Putin then toned down his rhetoric after Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive failed to achieve its goals.

Given Russia’s recent military successes, Putin has said Moscow does not need nuclear weapons to win in Ukraine. He has warned, however, that strikes by kyiv on Russian soil with Western-supplied long-range weapons would mark a major escalation because they would involve Western intelligence and military forces, something the West denies.

Representatives of NATO members, especially in smaller European countries, should be aware of what they are playing with, he said, adding that they might be mistaken in relying on U.S. protection if Russia strikes them.

The continued escalation could have serious consequences, he said. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States respond given our parity in strategic weapons? It is difficult to say. Do they want a global conflict?

Aim the nuclear gun
In May, Ukrainian drones attacked Russian radar installations. One damaged a radar in the southern Krasnodar region, according to satellite images. Another targeted a similar installation in the southern Urals, about 1,500 kilometers east of the border.

Both systems are part of Russia’s early warning system that can detect intercontinental ballistic missile launches from thousands of miles away. Moscow and Washington rely on these systems to track their adversaries’ launches.

Like previous Ukrainian attacks on Russian nuclear bomber bases, these radar strikes could be seen as triggers for the use of nuclear weapons under Moscow’s nuclear doctrine. Russian hawks have urged the Kremlin to respond forcefully.

At a forum in St. Petersburg in June, Kremlin-friendly foreign policy expert Sergei Karaganov urged Putin to point a nuclear gun at our Western adversaries to achieve victory in Ukraine.

Putin reacted cautiously, saying he saw no security threat that justified the use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. He did, however, indicate that Moscow was considering changing its nuclear doctrine.

Changes to nuclear doctrine
Since the beginning of the war, hawks have been calling for a revision of the doctrine, according to which Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike or an attack with conventional weapons that would threaten the very existence of the Russian state. Some of them believe that the threshold is too high, which gives the West the impression that the Kremlin will never touch its nuclear arsenal.

Dmitry Trenin, a foreign affairs analyst at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, a Moscow think tank advising the Kremlin, called for changing the doctrine to state that Russia could use nuclear weapons first when core national interests are at stake, as in Ukraine.

It is important to persuade the ruling elites in the United States and throughout the West that they will not be able to remain comfortable and fully protected after provoking a conflict with Russia, Trenin said.

Climbing the climbing ladder
As the West allows Ukraine to strike Russian territory, Putin has threatened to respond by supplying weapons to Western adversaries around the world. He underscored that message in June by signing a mutual defense pact with North Korea, signaling that Moscow could begin delivering weapons to Pyongyang.

He also said Moscow would begin producing intermediate-range missiles banned under a Cold War-era pact that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019. The Kremlin would not say where Moscow might deploy the new weapons banned under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned ground-launched missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,410 miles).

These nuclear-capable missiles are considered particularly destabilizing because they can reach their targets more quickly than ICBMs, leaving decision-makers with virtually no time to spare and increasing the risk of a global nuclear war due to a false launch warning.

Hawks have urged Putin to quickly escalate the escalation to force the West to back down.

An exercise with nuclear weapons on the battlefield is one such operation, Trenin said, while another could be an atomic test on Russia’s Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. Putin has left the door open to resuming such tests, which are banned by a global pact signed by Russia, although he noted that “it is not necessary yet.”

Some Russian military experts have said that Moscow could declare a no-fly zone over the Black Sea to prevent flights by U.S. intelligence agencies that help Ukraine strike targets in Russia. In late June, the Defense Ministry threatened to take unspecified measures against U.S. drones in the region.

According to Trenin and other experts, cyberattacks on American and European infrastructure, conventional strikes on Western troops if they go to Ukraine, and attacks on Kiev’s military supply centers on the territory of NATO member countries could also be considered. U.S. military bases could also be targeted, they added.

At the top of the ladder, Russia could threaten nuclear strikes on NATO targets in Europe to sober up the enemy and force it to enter negotiations, Trenin suggested.

Active nuclear deterrence means the possibility of using nuclear weapons first in the ongoing conflict, not necessarily on the battlefield and not on the territory of Ukraine, he said. The enemy should have no doubts: Russia will not allow itself to be defeated or prevented from achieving its stated goals by keeping nuclear weapons out of the conflict.