Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia could retaliate with nuclear weapons if attacked with conventional weapons, in the latest change to the country’s nuclear strategy.
Putin announced on Wednesday during a video conference of Russia’s Security Council that under the planned amendments, an attack on Russia by a non-nuclear state with the “participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state” would be considered a “joint attack on the Russian Federation.”
Putin stressed that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that poses a “serious threat to our sovereignty,” vague language that leaves wide room for interpretation.
“This should be seen as a clear signal to the West,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.
“This is a warning signal to these countries about the consequences if they join in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily just nuclear weapons,” he said.
Late Thursday, the European Union rejected Putin’s decision as “reckless and irresponsible.”
“This is not the first time that Putin is gambling with nuclear weapons,” EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano told reporters. “Of course we strongly reject these threats.”
The Ukraine factor
The Russian president is the main decision maker on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and must give final approval to the document.
The change is seen as significantly lowering the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons, something Ukraine’s Western allies have been urged to do, one month after Kiev launched a surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region.
Putin did not directly mention Ukraine, but said the doctrine’s revision was necessary given the rapidly changing global situation that is creating new threats and risks for Russia.
Russia has been slowly but surely making advances in Ukraine since launching a full-scale invasion of the country two and a half years ago, seeking to prevent Western allies from stepping up support for Kiev.
Putin has made multiple implicit threats of nuclear attack since the start of the war and has suspended Russia’s participation in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States, which limits the number of nuclear warheads each country can deploy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Western countries to ignore the Russian threat, and Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said Putin’s recent rhetoric was nothing more than a threat.
“Russia no longer has the means to threaten the world other than nuclear blackmail,” Yermak said. “These means will not work.”
Existing Doctrine
Russia’s existing nuclear strategy, set out in a 2020 decree, allows Moscow to use nuclear weapons in the event of an enemy nuclear attack or a conventional attack in which “the very existence of the state is endangered.”
Russian hardliners have been calling for strengthening the doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons for months, arguing that the current doctrine is too vague and gives the impression that Moscow will never resort to using nuclear weapons.
President Putin stressed that the revised conditions for the use of nuclear weapons were specified in more detail and that nuclear weapons could also be used in the event of a large-scale air strike.
He said the revised draft “clearly states the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons.”
Listing “strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic aircraft and other flying objects,” Putin added that “we will consider such a possibility if we receive reliable information about a large-scale launch of air and space offensive assets and their crossing our country’s borders.”
The current document says Russia would use nuclear weapons “if credible information is obtained about the launch of a ballistic missile aimed at the territory of Russia or its allies.”
Ukraine has responded to Moscow’s attacks by repeatedly attacking Russian territory with missiles and drones.
“Tired nuclear threats”
“By making his nuclear threats highly specific, Putin is likely seeking to breathe new life into the Kremlin’s tired nuclear threat intelligence campaign and spark a new wave of panic among Western policymakers at a particularly critical time of Western policy debate about Ukraine’s ability to use Western-supplied weapons,” the Institute for the Study of War, a prominent US think tank, said in an editorial.
“Whether you think this is a bluff or not, it’s never a good thing when a major nuclear power relaxes the conditions for nuclear use in its declaratory policy,” Samuel Sharap, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said in a post on X.
Putin also said the revised nuclear policy would bring neighboring Belarus under Russia’s nuclear umbrella.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin ally who has ruled the country for more than three decades, has allowed Russia to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine and has also allowed Moscow to station some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons there.
Russia is the world’s largest nuclear power. Russia and the United States together possess 88% of the world’s nuclear warheads.