With Russia, there are two kinds of talk about the possible use of nuclear weapons. There are those that come down to pure communication and those that come under strategic signaling. In the second case, it is always a far-reaching message, thought out and designed at the highest level of a nuclear State, intended for other powers equipped with the atomic bomb. While the war in Ukraine has lasted for more than two and a half years, Vladimir Putin’s speech at the opening of his security council on September 25 belongs to this category.
Reading from cardboard sheets prepared for the occasion, the master of the Kremlin presented on television what is presented as “clarifications” regarding Russian nuclear policy. They are of three orders. First, he explained that “aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear country, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country” will be considered “a joint attack against the Russian Federation.” Or, implicitly, an aggression by Ukraine, with the assistance of the United States, the United Kingdom and France – the objective being that the Westerners “deter themselves”.
It specifies, secondly, that the use of nuclear weapons could take place upon the detection of a “massive launch” of missiles, planes – “strategic and tactical” or drones. “This is an expansion compared to the 2020 doctrine, which spoke of ballistic missiles,” points out Héloïse Fayet, researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). Third, Vladimir Putin expanded the possibility of responding with nuclear weapons in the event of “aggression by Belarus”, where tactical weapons were deployed.
Putin’s clarification was expected, the Russian president having mentioned an evolution of the doctrine during a trip to Vietnam at the beginning of the summer. She intervenes in the middle of the UN general assembly, while the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was at the White House to obtain additional aid from the United States. It was made at a time when they, as well as the United Kingdom and France, are reluctant to allow Ukraine to strike on Russian territory with their long-range missiles.
“The nuclear ranting has reached its climax”
“Putin is trying to dissuade, but he is not going to trigger nuclear fire for missiles that hit an air base,” believes Héloïse Fayet, however. The release on the “massive” air attack raises the level of uncertainty about the possibility of retaliation to an air attack by Ukraine. But there is nothing to demonstrate that this is a lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which remains at the discretion of Vladimir Putin, the only one able to know what he means, in this in this case, by “massive”.
The changes to Russian doctrine “are less significant than they appear, but they provide greater room for interpretation for Russian leaders in defining the circumstances of nuclear use,” explained, in a tweet, Mariana Budjerynresearcher at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. And to take an example: “The threat of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state signatory to the non-proliferation treaty acting in concert with a nuclear state is not […] news”. In fact, the United States and Russia reported this in letters addressed to the UN Security Council in April 1995.
This increase in threats and uncertainty prompted the Secretary General of the United Nations to react. “Never since the worst hours of the Cold War has the specter of nuclear weapons cast such a shadow,” declared Antonio Guterres the day after Vladimir Putin’s declaration. “The nuclear rantings have reached their climax.” As long as the war continues in Ukraine, they should continue.