VLADIMIR POUTINE. Vladimir Putin brandished the nuclear threat after the start of the war in Ukraine. Serious intention or simple declaration in a logic of nuclear deterrence? How would such an operation be decided and is he really capable of triggering a nuclear attack?
[Mis à jour le 3 mars 2022 à 16h41] Is Vladimir Putin seriously considering launching a nuclear bomb on Europe? Twice, the Russian president recalled the nuclear power of Russia and its strike force in terms of nuclear deterrence, even announcing on February 27 the alert of the “deterrent forces” which include a nuclear component. According to the Elysée, a new discussion between Vladimir Poutine and Emmanuel Macron on March 3, 2022 is not likely to reassure, the Russian president having assured his French counterpart of “his very great determination” to continue the offensive started in Ukraine with the ambition “to take control” of the entire Ukrainian territory, still according to the Elysée, when Emmanuel Macron warned him for his part that Russia would “end up isolated, weakened and under sanctions for a period very long”.
If these speeches appear above all as warnings and means of putting pressure both on Ukraine, to push it to surrender, and on Europe and the United States to dissuade them from intervening, the Russian nuclear arsenal is enough to make any Western country green. With 6,000 warheads listed, 1,500 of which are operational, Russia has a nuclear strike force capable of destroying all life on the surface of the Earth. Materially, no satellite image shows suspicious movements on the armament or positioning of submarines or bombers, but Russia is equipped with missiles that can be armed with nuclear warheads at any time.
Can Vladimir Putin launch a nuclear attack?
The Russian Federation is the first military power and the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, as such it is fully capable of launching a nuclear bomb on Ukraine, Europe or the United States. Only technical capabilities are not the only factor to consider. In theory, a nuclear attack should only be launched in a defensive context and in October 2020, Moscow signed an official document which lists the four cases that justify the use of a nuclear attack. Each time Russia must perceive not only threatening and nuclear capabilities but also intentions signaled by the adversary. It will therefore be difficult to justify an attack on Ukraine with a nuclear bomb, the country not being nuclearized. On the other hand, against Europe the threat remains serious because according to Russia’s account of the war, the West adopts a threatening behavior and proliferates “aggressive declarations” with regard to the Kremlin.
Strategically, the nuclear threat is the last advantage that Moscow has to achieve its objectives and regain control of Ukraine given the difficult advances of the Russian army in Ukraine and the pressures and sanctions that the West is bringing to bear on Russia. . However, Vladimir Putin knows that if he launches a nuclear attack on Europe or the United States, Russia will be bombarded in return and having attacked first it will get the wrong role and will be even more isolated from international politics. According to Nicolai Sokov, an expert on Russian nuclear weapons at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, contacted by France 24“the use of the nuclear threat in the context of this conflict is a terrible mistake that will do great harm to Russia and Vladimir Putin”.
Does Vladimir Putin decide alone to launch a nuclear attack?
The “nuclear briefcase” is held by three people and the trio must be unanimous to trigger a nuclear attack. Vladimir Putin, as President of the Russian Federation, has access to this weapon but he must obtain the agreement of the Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff, Valéri Guérassimov, to drop a nuclear bomb.
Putin rewrites Ukrainian history
It is indeed the rapprochement between the government of Kiev and NATO which is at the origin of this war started by Vladimir Poutine but the Russian president rewrites the history to have the beautiful role. In his speech of February 27, 2022, he explains that the Russian military intervention aims to “protect the victims of genocide by Kiev”, to “liberate” the Ukrainians from “oppression” and to “maintain the peace”. Earlier, on February 24, he said that “Ukraine is not just a neighboring country, it is an integral part of our culture and the history of our country”. This vision of “unity” between Russia and Ukraine, often mentioned by the Head of State, justifies the Kremlin’s military intervention in the border country. Moscow does not hesitate to rewrite the history of the Soviet Union and of Ukraine created “from scratch by Russia, more precisely by communist, Bolshevik Russia”. History textbooks, however, describe a creation of Ukraine in 1910 by the USSR, when the empire wanted to organize the territories it controlled militarily, as reminded by the professor of geopolitics at the Sorbonne, Gérard-François Dumont , at West France.
Since the breakup of the USSR, sovereign Ukraine has moved away from Russia and instead moved closer to the West, much to Vladimir Putin’s chagrin. By seeking to justify the entry of the Russian army into Ukraine, the one nicknamed “the Russian bear” explains that he wants to “protect” the Ukrainian people from the “Nazis” in power. The reference refers to the stealth association between Ukraine and Nazi Germany during World War II after the German promise to help Ukrainians leave the USSR. Today the neo-Nazi parties still exist but are ultra-minority and absent from the government. According to Juliette Cadiot, director of studies at the EHESS interviewed by French Culture, the use of the term “Nazi” by Vladimir Putin serves to qualify all the nationalist policies that he tries to pass off as “a small, often corrupt neo-Nazi elite” to place himself as the savior of the Ukrainian people. Vladimir Putin’s river speech therefore describes a reality very different from that on the ground.
Short biography of Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin is a Russian politician and a central figure in the executive since 1999. Re-elected President of the Russian Federation for the fourth time in 2018, he has held the position since 2000 with a short hiatus between 2008 and 2012 during which he was president of the government, the equivalent of the Prime Minister.
Vladimir Poutine was born in 1952 in Leningrad (currently Saint-Petersburg), in a modest family of workers. He studied law at the University of Leningrad and graduated in 1975. He then joined the KGB (the intelligence services, which he left in 1991) and became an officer. He was then sent to the GDR in 1985, where he worked undercover. After the reunification of Germany, Putin returned to Leningrad in 1990. When his former law professor, Anatoly Sobchak, was elected mayor of the city in 1991, he asked him to join the team as an adviser. Vladimir Putin became an influential member of the town hall and was appointed first deputy mayor in 1994, before resigning in 1996. Then began a rapid rise: he entered the presidential administration in 1997, was appointed Prime Minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1999, then became acting president after the latter’s resignation that same year.
He was elected President of the Russian Federation in 2000, then re-elected in 2004. He gave more power to the security services while regaining control over the governors in the various regions. It enjoys fairly strong popularity, even if civil society (media, opponents) is increasingly controlled by the state. In 2008, he cannot stand for a third consecutive term. He then chose Dmitri Medvedev to occupy the post of president and was elected prime minister. In March 2012, despite many protesting voices, he was re-elected for a six-year term while Medvedev held the post of Prime Minister.