{"id":70886,"date":"2022-03-02T15:15:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T04:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=70886"},"modified":"2022-03-09T11:39:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T00:39:03","slug":"will-putin-use-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/will-putin-use-nuclear-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Putin use nuclear weapons?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s still early days in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but so far nuclear issues have enjoyed a much higher profile than might have been expected. A strategic missile exercise formed part of the lead-up to the invasion. And when first launching the military operation last Thursday, Putin warned darkly that any country that stood in Russia\u2019s way would suffer \u2018consequences that you have never encountered in your history\u2019.<\/p>\n

Since then, we\u2019ve had statements that allege the invasion was motivated in part by a concern that Ukraine was a proliferation threat. We\u2019ve had a Russian spokesman say that the reason Chernobyl was seized so early in the campaign was to deny Ukraine the option of making a \u2018dirty\u2019 bomb. And we\u2019ve had voters in Belarus\u2014in a disputed referendum\u2014renounce the anti-nuclear clause in its constitution, opening up the possible deployment of Russian nuclear weapons there.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most worryingly, on Sunday Putin instructed his defence minister and chief of the general staff to raise the alert level of Russian deterrence forces by putting them on a \u2018special regime of combat duty\u2019. It\u2019s not clear what he meant. US defence officials observed that this was not a term of operational art with which they were familiar and stated that they had seen no subsequent \u2018muscle movement\u2019 in the status of the Russian nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n

The Russian ministry of defence confirmed on Monday that its nuclear missile forces and the Northern and Pacific fleets had been placed on \u2018enhanced\u2019 combat duty. Some reports spoke of Russia boosting staff at its nuclear sites\u2014which might mean that all leave has been cancelled.<\/p>\n

All of this has made for a hectic time in the world of nuclear strategists. Nuclear signalling is woven through the invasion of Ukraine in a way we haven\u2019t seen since the days of the Cuban missile crisis. Naturally, it has fed a wave of speculation on social media about the potential crossing of the nuclear threshold, either deliberately or inadvertently.<\/p>\n

In early June 2020, Russia published an official outline of the principles underpinning Russian nuclear deterrence. (The online English translation seems currently inaccessible, perhaps as a result of the attack by the group called Anonymous against Russian governmental internet sites, but a quick summary can be found here<\/a>.) The document lists four instances in which Russia might resort to use of nuclear weapons:<\/p>\n