A year ago, the United States, along with Britain and France, threatened Russia with certain consequences if it used nuclear weapons. This permanently eliminated nuclear threats from Russian rhetoric.
Source: material from the head of the Moscow bureau Financial Times Max Seddon writes “European truth”
Details: Russian President Vladimir Putin first hinted at the possibility of launching a limited nuclear strike on Ukraine in a speech ahead of a full-scale invasion in February 2022. And after the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, he promised to “use all the means at our disposal” to protect these gains.
“These threats have prompted the US, UK and France to promise a conventional weapons response,” Seddon writes, citing unnamed current and former officials.
According to FT interlocutors, Chinese leader Xi Jinping also played a role, who personally warned Putin against using nuclear weapons, in particular during a visit to Moscow in March 2023.
Let us remind you: Previously, experts suggested a possible conventional response from the West to Russia’s nuclear strike on Ukraine. Journalists’ interlocutors at NATO talked about a “physical response”but without specifics.
After all, last fall Putin admitted that the use of tactical nuclear weapons has “neither political nor military meaning” and practically stopped talking about nuclear threats.
Now the Russian Federation is resorting to the topic of nuclear weapons, trying to restrain further military support for Ukraine from the West, writes Max Seddon from the Financial Times, citing experts interviewed.
Among other things, he ordered the deployment of nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, as well as initiated the cancellation of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treatywhich could pave the way for the resumption of atomic testing for the first time since the collapse of the USSR.
Last week, the Russian military top reported to Vladimir Putin about the exercises of the Strategic Nuclear Forces of the Russian Federation, during which they practiced “delivering a massive nuclear strike” in response to an enemy blow.
2023-11-01 17:48:04
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