The nuclear threat still worries NATO, which is meeting on November 16, 2022, but discussions on a nuclear war and the means to protect against it are said to be underway between Washington and Moscow. For nine months Russia has oscillated between threat and rejection of the scenario of a nuclear attack.
[Mis à jour le 15 novembre 2022 à 11h] The scenario of an escalation of the war in Ukraine towards a nuclear war has been hovering over the conflict for nearly nine months. The hypothesis, which has been reinforced several times by threats made by Russia, however, seems to have lost strength in recent weeks. Could the two missiles that hit Poland on November 15 be a game-changer? The immediate reactions of Western forces suggest not. The United States, France and more broadly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which meets urgently on Wednesday, November 16, invite not to hold “hasty conclusions” in the words of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in particular as long as the origin of the missiles is unknown. While Ukraine accuses Russia of being responsible for the attack, whether voluntarily or indirectly, US intelligence indicates that the explosions in Poland could be due to a missile “fired by Ukrainian forces against Russian fire aimed at a Ukrainian electricity infrastructure” according to preliminary analyses. According to other intelligence services, the anti-aircraft defense system could also explain the arrival of the missiles in Poland.
If Moscow has not been stingy with nuclear threats in recent months, experts have been repeating since the start of the war in Ukraine that the risks run by Vladimir Putin in such a scenario, in particular an armed response from NATO, are too important. Especially since on November 2, through the voice of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow affirmed that its “main priority” is to prevent any confrontation between nuclear powers” which would be responsible for “catastrophic consequences”. A desire confirmed by the information from Wall Street Journal according to whom Washington has been discussing for several months with Russian officials on the nuclear risk and the widening of the war in Ukraine but also on the means of protecting itself from such a scenario. On the American side, Jake Sullivan, who defends the idea of maintaining exchanges with Russia, is leading discussions with Yuri Ouchakov, diplomatic adviser to Vladimir Putin, and Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia. the New York Times reported in early November that in Moscow further talks were taking place between Russian leaders and strategists but without Vladimir Putin on when and how a tactical nuclear weapon might be used in the conflict. Potential exchanges which had no repercussions on the ground, no military movement aimed at preparing a nuclear attack having been observed by the various intelligence agencies.
Can Russia start a nuclear war?
Threats of nuclear war have been a Russian refrain since the beginning of 2022. They go hand in hand with the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces launched on February 24 and have since been regularly uttered by the leaders of the Kremlin. But every time a nuclear attack has been mentioned, the possibility of being attacked has been ruled out on the one hand by military intelligence, on the other by regulations on nuclear attacks. Russian doctrine, however, authorizes an assault if the vital interests of Russia are threatened and Vladimir Putin opened this door ajar during his speech on September 21 by assuring that territorial integrity, [la] freedom, [la] sovereignty will be defended [de la Russie] by any means necessary” and that they were already endangered by the actions of the West. This now concerns, in addition, in his eyes, the four Ukrainian regions which were annexed at the end of September.
The launching of an offensive nuclear attack is strictly prohibited for all nuclear powers and Russia would be in the wrong position if it initiated the attack. Moreover, the consequences of dropping an atomic bomb would be unprecedented and would not spare Russia. Still, the Kremlin doctrine allows the use of nuclear weapons for tactical attacks on certain areas and this possibility was already put forward by the Russian forces a few months ago. According to Colonel Michel Goya, guest on BFM Business on October 4, the Russians “have the means to do it, but they know that it is a weapon of last resort and [ils] are not there militarily”.
Especially since if the assault would strike a blow, it would then paralyze the confrontation because everything would be destroyed and above all, the area would be contaminated by radiation. Militarily, the benefits of a tactical nuclear attack are debatable, but politically they are nil. A tactical assault remains a nuclear attack that would call for a severe and immediate response from the West. Who is ready to answer as indicated by the former director of the CIA, David Petraeus, on ABC Sunday, October 2: “We would respond by leading a NATO effort that would eliminate all Russian conventional forces that we can see.” The man however added: “we do not want to embark, once again, on a nuclear escalation.”
What are the reactions to the threat of nuclear war?
Russia is the only one to have repeatedly brandished the nuclear threat and also the only one to support the idea. In the West, a nuclear attack is considered the worst-case scenario and China and India, which present themselves as allies of Moscow against the Western bloc, have also refused the hypothesis of a nuclear attack by calling for a “cease -fire through dialogue” as well as a “solution that addresses the legitimate security concerns of all parties as soon as possible”. It is therefore difficult for Vladimir Putin to find support. On the occasion of the G20 organized in Bali in mid-November, all the leaders reached an agreement to write a press release which specifies that “most members […] strongly condemn” the conflict and consider “inadmissible” threats or nuclear recourse. However on November 15, China underlined the “rational” and “responsible” Russian discourse according to which Moscow refuses to wage a world war.
Still, the nuclear threat still looms. The head of NATO has repeatedly denounced the “dangerous nuclear rhetoric” of the Russian president. He was followed by Washington, which accused Russia of “brazenly violating” the founding principles of the United Nations and said on November 2 that it was “increasingly concerned” about a possible nuclear attack. opposition from Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy said he “did not believe” in the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, in an interview with the German television channel Picture TVwhile Emmanuel Macron called on the international community to “put maximum pressure” on Vladimir Putin.
What do simulations of a Russian nuclear attack predict?
The nuclear threat has been brandished more than once since the start of the war in Ukraine. But the hypothesis of an attack took on another dimension in the spring of 2022 when, echoing Vladimir Putin’s speeches on the Russian strike force and arsenal, the media close to the Kremlin took part in the propaganda and lent themselves to simulations of a nuclear attack. On the public channel Rossiya 1, columnists assured on April 28, 2022 that it only took a few minutes for a missile to level European cities: 106 seconds to wipe Berlin off the map, 200 for Paris and 202 for London . The apocalyptic scenario is scary, but it is above all biased by pro-Russian discourse and conveys false information.
The following days, the speech of the Russian media and the simulations were discredited by the explanations of Benjamin Gravisse in the columns of Release. The political scientist specializing in Russian military issues said that the scenarios were based on the capabilities of the Satan 2 missile which is in possession of Russia but still in the test phase and unusable before the end of the year. Second problem, the simulations took into account a launch operated from the Kaliningrad enclave while this military base is not equipped to launch a nuclear missile and finally, even launched from this area, a missile would take longer to reach European capitals.
If these simulations of nuclear attacks are wrong, the risks of an assault with atomic weapons are always possible and the damage will be unprecedented. The fact remains that at the present time, apart from the capacities and the perimeters of the estimated destruction of each missile, nothing makes it possible to simulate the consequences of a nuclear attack. We simply know that within the Russian arsenal, certain nuclear warheads can reduce a territory over tens of kilometers to dust. Note that the West has missiles with an equivalent strike force.