Putin issues nuclear warning to West over nuclear strikes on Russia from Ukraine

MOSCOW
Reuters
—

President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use nuclear weapons if struck by conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any attack against it backed by a nuclear power as a joint attack.

The decision to change Russia’s official nuclear doctrine is the Kremlin’s response to deliberations in the United States and Britain over whether to allow Ukraine to fire Western conventional missiles at Russia.

Opening a meeting of the Russian Security Council, Putin said the changes were a response to a rapidly changing global landscape that has created new threats and risks for Russia.

The 71-year-old Kremlin chief, the top decision-maker on Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, said he wanted to highlight one key change in particular.

“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, should be considered a joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin said.

“The conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons are also clearly set,” Putin said, adding that Moscow would consider such a step if it detected the beginning of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.

Russia also reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if it or its Belarusian ally are attacked, including by conventional weapons, Putin said.

Putin said the clarifications were carefully calibrated and proportionate to the modern military threats Russia faces – confirming that nuclear doctrine is changing.

Russia’s current nuclear doctrine, set out in a 2020 decree by Putin, states that Russia can use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

The innovations Putin outlined include a broadening of the threats under which Russia would consider a nuclear strike, the inclusion of ally Belarus under the nuclear umbrella, and the idea that a rival nuclear power supporting a conventional strike against Russia would also be considered the attacker.

In 2022, the United States was so concerned about Russia’s possible use of tactical nuclear weapons that it warned Putin of the consequences of using such weapons, according to Central Intelligence Agency Director Bill Burns.

The two-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine has sparked the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, seen as the closest the two Cold War superpowers came to an intentional nuclear war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has for months urged kyiv’s allies to let Ukraine fire Western missiles, including long-range U.S. ATACMS missiles and British Storm Shadows missiles, deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.

As Ukraine loses key cities to the steady advance of Russian forces in the east of the country, the war is entering what Russian officials consider the most dangerous phase yet.

Zelensky has urged the West to cross and ignore Russia’s so-called “red lines,” and some Western allies have urged the United States to do just that, although Putin’s Russia, which controls just under a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, has warned that the West and Ukraine risk a world war.

“Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world, except nuclear blackmail,” Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said in response to Putin’s remarks. “These instruments will not work.”

Putin, who portrays the West as a decadent aggressor, and US President Joe Biden, who portrays Russia as a corrupt autocracy and Putin as a murderer, have both warned that a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO could escalate into a third world war. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has also warned of the risk of nuclear war.

Russia is the world’s leading nuclear power. Together, Russia and the United States control 88% of the world’s nuclear warheads.

In his address to the Russian Security Council, a sort of modern politburo made up of Putin’s most powerful officials, including influential hawks, Putin said work on amendments to change the doctrine had been underway for a year.

“The nuclear triad remains the most important guarantee for ensuring the security of our state and citizens, an instrument for maintaining strategic parity and balance of power in the world,” Putin said.

Russia, he said, would consider using nuclear weapons “as soon as it receives reliable information about the mass launch of aerospace attack vehicles and their crossing of our national border, that is, strategic or tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic aircraft and others.”