The Kremlin on Sept. 26 emphasized that President Vladimir Putin’s revisions to Russia’s nuclear weapons doctrine should serve as a warning to Western nations, making clear that involvement in attacks on Russia would carry serious repercussions.
A day earlier, Putin announced that Russia could respond to conventional missile strikes with nuclear weapons, and indicated that Moscow would treat any attack backed by a nuclear-armed country as a coordinated assault.
Russia’s decision to modify its nuclear doctrine is a direct response to discussions in the U.S. and U.K. about whether to allow Ukraine to launch conventional Western missiles into Russian territory.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that updates had been made to a document titled “The Foundations of State Policy in the Sphere of Nuclear Deterrence.” When asked if these changes were intended as a message to the West, Peskov said: “This should be considered a definite signal.”
Peskov emphasized that Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine serves as “a signal that warns these countries about the consequences if they participate in an attack on our country by various means, and not necessarily nuclear ones.” He added that the world is witnessing an “unprecedented confrontation” provoked by the “direct involvement of Western countries, including nuclear powers,” in the war in Ukraine.
“Russia’s nuclear rhetoric is dangerous and reckless,” outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the Council on Foreign Relations, according to Reuters. “We are closely watching what Russia is doing.”
Is Russia’s new nuclear doctrine saber-rattling or a real threat?
Seven weeks into Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a thinly veiled threat toward Ukraine and its allies during a Russian Security Council meeting on nuclear deterrence. “An aggression by a non-nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear stat…