Russia's nuclear policy now covers attacks on non-nuclear countries

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a new nuclear warning to the West, stating that any conventional attack on Russia backed by a nuclear power would be viewed as a combined assault, News.Az reports citing The Washington Times .

At a meeting with the Russian Security Council, Putin said that in light of an “emergence of new sources of military threats and risks for Russia and our allies,” specialists from the Russian Ministry of Defense and other government agencies had conducted a year-long, in-depth review of the country’s nuclear doctrine.

“The updated version of the document proposes that aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin told the council.

He said the conditions for the launch of Russia’s nuclear weapons would be “reliable information about a massive launch of aerospace attack means and their crossing of our state border.”

The announcement comes after a flurry of nuclear-related threats from Russian officials in the face of Ukrainian requests to the United States and other allies to lift restrictions on weapons. Currently Ukraine is not allowed to use its longer range missiles supplied by its allies against targets deep inside Russia.

Analysts, however, have dismissed many of these threats to use nuclear weapons as impractical, as Putin casts around for other ways of confronting Ukraine’s Western support.

Russian propagandists and officials, however, were quick to reinforce Putin’s statements.

Speaking to Russian state media, Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the State Duma Defense Committee, said that, the proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine “will allow it to become more flexible and effective.”

“The changes were made to ensure that the doctrine corresponds to the realities of today,” Kartapolov added.

Writing on Telegram, Russian propagandist Sergey Markov said that the threshold for the use of nuclear had now been lowered and predicted that it would be easier for Russia to deploy nuclear weapons. “Generally speaking this means that Russia under the new doctrine can now use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Ukraine’s aggression in Kursk region is there. There is support of nuclear U.S., Britain and France. So it is already possible to hit Kyiv with nuclear weapons,” said Markov.

Markov added that Moscow had been pushed to alter its nuclear doctrine due to “the threat of the West’s full escalation of the war against Russia.”

A former speechwriter for Putin and Russian political analyst Abbas Gallyamov called Putin’s statement “a real disgrace.”

“They have again indicated that they no longer expect to defeat Ukraine with conventional weapons,” wrote Galyamov on Telegram.

Pavel Podvig, an analyst based in Geneva, who runs the Russian Nuclear Forces project, told The Post that the amendments were designed to create “uncertainty and ambiguity about the possibility of a response” and described the previous version of the doctrine as being regarded by many in Russia as “fairly restrictive.”

“Overall, it is a message that is designed to kind of warn the West, in this case, that the kind of assistance that is being discussed right now could be, could be problematic,” he said.

Podvig added that Putin’s remarks would trigger more questions about the definition of an attack against Russia and would “have people guessing, and have people be cautious about anything that would kind of resemble this.”

As the West has deliberated over whether to approve the use of its long range missiles for Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory, there have been hints that Moscow was considering updating its nuclear doctrine.

In June, Putin said that Russia’s nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change in line with world events. And earlier this month, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian state media that Moscow would make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine.

“The work is at an advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to make corrections,” state news wire Tass cited Ryabkov as saying.

The existing nuclear doctrine, which was set out in a 2020 decree by Putin, states that Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.

Russian hawks and some military analysts have long urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear weapons to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.

News.Az