Vladimir Putin has escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.
His remarks on Wednesday came during a meeting with Russia’s powerful security council where he also announced changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.
The comments marked Russia’s strongest warning yet to the west against allowing Ukraine to launch deep strikes into Russian territory using long-range western missiles.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has been asking for months for permission to use British Storm Shadow missiles and US-made Atacms missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia.
Putin said that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow received “reliable information” about the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.
Putin also warned that a nuclear power supporting another country’s attack on Russia would be considered a participant in aggression, issuing a thinly veiled threat to the west as foreign leaders continue to mull whether to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons.
Putin said the clarifications were carefully calibrated and commensurate with the modern military threats facing Russia. “We see the modern military and political situation is dynamically changing and we must take this into consideration. Including the emergence of new sources of military threats and risks for Russia and our allies,” he said.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, dismissed the new nuclear doctrine, saying: “Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail. These instruments will not work.”
Several influential foreign policy hawks have previously pressed Putin to adopt a more assertive nuclear posture towards the west, lowering its threshold for using nuclear weapons in order to deter the west against providing more direct military support to Ukraine.
The current doctrine was set out by Putin in June 2020 in a six-page decree.
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In the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin frequently invoked Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, the world’s biggest, repeatedly pledging to use all means necessary to defend Russia.
He later seemed to moderate his rhetoric, but officials close to the Russian president have recently warned Nato countries they risked provoking nuclear war if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range weapons.
Earlier this month, Putin said that the west would be directly fighting with Russia if it gave such permission to Ukraine – and that Russia would be forced to make “appropriate decisions”, without spelling out what those measures could be.