Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it sees as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.
Existing nuclear doctrine, laid out in a decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia can use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the state’s existence.
Some hawks among Russian military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up Russia’s enemies in the West,” Reuters news agency reported.
In June, Putin said the nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change based on world events. Ryabkov’s comments on Sunday were the clearest statement yet that changes would indeed be made.
“The work is at an advanced stage and there is a clear intention to make corrections,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the state news agency TASS. He noted that the decision was “connected with the course of escalation of our Western adversaries” in relation to the conflict in Ukraine.
Moscow accuses the West of using Ukraine as a proxy to wage war against the country, with the aim of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia and dismembering it. The US and its allies deny this and say they are helping Ukraine defend itself against a colonial-style war of aggression by Russia.
“Red lines”
Putin said on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that anyone who tried to hinder or threaten it would suffer “consequences it has never faced in its history.”
Since then, he has issued a series of additional statements that the West considers nuclear threats and has announced the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
That has not deterred the United States and its allies from increasing military aid to Ukraine in ways that were unthinkable when the war began, including the supply of tanks, long-range missiles and F-16 fighter jets.
Ukraine stunned Moscow last month by piercing its western border in an incursion by thousands of troops that Russia is still struggling to repel. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the operation was a mockery of Putin’s “red lines.” He is also pushing hard for the United States to allow him to use advanced Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published Sunday that the West was “going too far” and that Russia would do everything possible to protect its interests.
Ryabkov did not specify when the updated nuclear doctrine would be ready. “The timing of the completion of this work is a rather complicated question, given that we are talking about the most important aspects of ensuring our national security,” he said.
Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other country. Putin said in March that Moscow was prepared for the eventuality of a nuclear war “from a military-technical point of view.” He said, however, that he saw no rush toward a nuclear confrontation and that Russia had never faced the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
