On September 28, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, the U.S. was spreading false information about Russian nuclear threats.
“U.S. officials continue to escalate the situation, intimidating the American and international public with sham Russian ‘nuclear threats’. Such rhetoric twists the statements of the Russian leadership,” Antonov wrote in the magazine The National Interest.
That is false. In fact, veiled and not-so-veiled threats to strike with nuclear weapons have spilled out from Russian President Vladimir Putin ever since Ukrainian forces started regaining ground in the war last month.
Russia has previously stated that it would only use strategic nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike. Now, it appears less destructive tactical nuclear weapons might be OK in Ukraine.
What’s going on? Let’s trace it back a bit.
On April 21, 2000, which stated that Russia could use nuclear weapons only if A) “nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction” were used against it or its allies, or B) “in response to large-scale aggression with the use of conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.”
The doctrine also said that Russia could not use nuclear weapons against Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) states that do not possess such weapons – unless those states attacked Russia jointly along with a state that did have nukes.
Ukraine became a party to the non-proliferation treaty in 1994 after accumulated under the Soviet Union.
On June 7, 2003, , "On the Ratification of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SOR) between the Russian Federation and the United States." Under that treaty, to slash their strategic nuclear arms to under 2,200 warheads each.
Note that, in general, strategic nukes are big bombs and ballistic weapons that can level whole cities, while tactical nukes are battlefield versions that do smaller-scale damage.
In a recent interview with CNN, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the former commander of U.K. & NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Forces, spelled it out:
By comparison, the nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, in the Second World War had .
On February 5, 2010, . It stated that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to weapons of mass destruction being used against it or its allies, as well as in response to an aggression against Russia using conventional weapons that endangered “the very existence of the state.”
The revised military doctrine also omitted the prohibition on nuking NPT member states.
In “,” a film based on an interview with Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, that Russia would use nuclear weapons only if the country's very existence were threatened.
“This is called a retaliatory strike. If this is a decision to destroy Russia, then we have a legitimate right to respond,” Putin said then.
In October 2018, that Russia would only launch a nuclear strike on another country if Russia was hit by a nuclear weapon.
“Our nuclear weapons doctrine does not provide for a pre-emptive strike. … Our concept is based on a reciprocal counter-strike. … Why do I say ‘counter’? Because we will counter missiles flying toward us by sending a missile in the direction of an aggressor. …
“Yes, it looks like we are sitting on our hands and waiting until someone uses nuclear weapons against us. Well, yes, this is what it is,” Putin said.
Another Putin decree, "On the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence," Russia would use nuclear weapons if attacked with them, or if a non-nuclear military strike threatened "the very existence of the state."
The posture began to change further when Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 24 after along the border while denying plans to attack.
Putin placed Russian nuclear forces and made oblique threats to go nuke.
“If anyone intends to intervene from the outside and create a strategic threat to Russia that is unacceptable to us, they should know that our retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast,” .
Then in September, after the Ukrainian military forced Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region to retreat from an area of about 3,000 square miles, the threatening rhetoric sharpened.
In a September 21 address a threat to Russia’s “territorial integrity,” not just to Russia’s existence, could justify retaliation that most took to mean nuclear: