Putin lowers bar for nuclear strike amid Ukraine attacks: why it matters

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Russia change its rules in favor of nuclear weapons, thereby lowering the threshold at which it could use them.

Experts said the threat was intended to frighten the United States and its allies at a time when Ukraine is exerting pressure. NATO members will allow it to use their long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russian territory.

Here’s what Putin said, why it represents a shift in Moscow’s nuclear policy, and what it could mean for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

What did Putin say?

Putin detailed the latest changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine during a televised meeting of the Russian Security Council.

He said an attack that poses a “critical threat” to Russia’s sovereignty, if carried out by a non-nuclear power with “the participation or support of a nuclear power”, would be considered an “attack joint action against the Russian Federation.

Putin did not name any countries, but the message was clear: if the Kremlin concludes that a Ukrainian attack on its soil using American, French or British missiles represents a “critical threat” to Russia’s sovereignty, Moscow will consider kyiv’s Western allies as kyiv’s Western allies. the attackers too.

Putin said such a scenario would meet Russia’s criteria – under its updated doctrine – for the use of nuclear weapons.

“We will consider such a possibility when we receive reliable information about a massive launch of means of air and space attack and their crossing of the border of our state,” Putin added, listing “strategic and tactical aircraft, missiles of cruise, drones, hypersonic vehicles and other flying vehicles. “.

He added that this also applies to attacks on neighboring Belarus, which Moscow considers its most loyal ally. At the end of August, Ukraine accused Belarus of having assembled troops on the common border of the two countries.

Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with a stockpile of 6,000 nuclear warheads, some of which are stationed in Belarus.

How does this lower Russia’s nuclear threshold?

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on September 1 that Russia would change its nuclear doctrine – last updated in 2020 – in response to growing threats from the West and its allies.

This came after Ukraine launched a major offensive in Russia’s Kursk region using Western weapons in August, taking control of dozens of settlements.

But until now, Russia has not specified what changes it will make to its nuclear doctrine. It was deliberate, experts said.

This intentionally kept the changes ambiguous, Keir Giles, a senior consultant at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera earlier this month. “Russia wants the world to think that it is about to go nuclear and that anything could provoke a nuclear war,” said Giles, who is also the author of an upcoming book, Who will Defend Europe?

This ambiguity has partly disappeared with Putin’s comments.

Under Doctrine 2020, Russia emphasized that it could even respond to conventional attacks with nuclear strikes if it concluded that “the very existence of the state is in danger.” But the assumption was that Russia would only consider using nuclear weapons – even in response to conventional weapons – if the country attacking it was itself a nuclear state. After all, as current doctrine emphasizes, Russia views nuclear weapons as a means of “deterrence.”

However, Putin’s new position suggests that Russia could use nuclear weapons even against a non-nuclear state – such as Ukraine – if it is supported by nuclear-armed countries. This fundamentally lowers the threshold for the use of atomic weapons.

Does the new policy increase potential Russian nuclear targets?

In theory, it does – in three ways.

First, non-nuclear states could be targeted if they attack with the assistance of nuclear states.

Second, by describing such attacks on Russia as a “joint attack,” Putin has effectively set the stage for Moscow to claim that it could target Ukraine’s nuclear allies – the US, the UK and France – directly, on their soil, if kyiv attacks Russia in a way that the Kremlin says poses a “critical threat” to the country’s sovereignty.

Third, by asserting that these principles would also apply if allies like Belarus were targeted, Putin expanded the set of circumstances under which Russia could launch a nuclear response.

Is there an imminent risk of nuclear escalation?

Not really, experts say.

Giles told Al Jazeera in an interview on Wednesday that Putin’s recent announcement was still vague. It is not yet clear when Russia will formalize the changes Putin said it would make to its nuclear doctrine. And so far, the United States and its allies have not given the green light to Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles in Russia.

“Nothing has happened at this point, nothing has changed,” Giles said.

Why did Putin make this announcement now?

The announcement comes a month after Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, escalating the war. Since then, a Russian counteroffensive has pushed Ukrainian troops back from many areas they had conquered.

But Ukrainian forces remain on Russian territory – and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said kyiv wants to keep its Kursk gains and use them as a bargaining chip in territorial swap negotiations with Moscow. Russia controls large parts of the Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

Zelensky is currently lobbying the Biden administration in the US, seeking its approval – and that of the UK – to use long-range missiles against targets deep within Russian territory.

Giles noted that Putin’s latest announcement is an attempt to dissuade the United States from supporting Ukraine by lifting restrictions on long-range missiles.

“Every time Russia detects that there is a risk of developing support for Ukraine that it would not like, nuclear threats intensify,” he said.

Giles said that while Putin’s deterrent might work against the United States, other allies of Ukraine that would be immediately threatened in the event of a nuclear attack due to their geographic proximity, such as the Baltic states, are ” categorical” that restrictions on long-range missiles be lifted.

Experts stress that despite the importance of the change in nuclear doctrine announced by Moscow, it is only the latest in a series of implicit or explicit nuclear threats made by Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.