Putin issues nuclear warning to West

Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened on Thursday to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine over claims that the West is “lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use.”

Putin was speaking at a press conference following his trip to North Korea and Vietnam and the warning comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West over Putin’s ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine lays out the conditions under which it can use such weapons. Putin said Moscow may justify the use of nuclear weapons if another nation uses them against Russia or if the “very existence of the state is put under threat.”

Russia is aware that a “potential adversary” is working on new elements “related to lowering the threshold of nuclear weapon use,” Putin said during the press briefing.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said Thursday that Putin was likely responding in part to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s remarks on June 17 that members of the military alliance are discussing increased nuclear readiness in the face of growing threats from Russia and China, “even though Stoltenberg did not discuss lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use.”

Newsweek has contacted NATO for comment.

Putin’s rhetoric “deliberately aims to present Russia’s aggression in Ukraine as an existential war for Russia’s sovereignty,” the ISW assessed.

The Russian leader “likely invoked the possibility of lowering the threshold for nuclear weapon use to imply that he reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if his forces are decisively defeated on the frontlines in order to deter Ukraine’s allies from reaching a common strategic objective of decisively defeating Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an outcome which is in the West’s interests,” the think tank said.

“Putin’s nuclear threat is part of an ongoing Kremlin nuclear blackmail campaign aimed at dissuading Ukraine’s allies from decisively committing to defeating Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and is therefore highly unlikely to result in actual nuclear escalation,” it said.

The ISW added: “A Russian strategic defeat in Ukraine does not threaten Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (but it can threaten the stability of Putin’s regime).”

Earlier this month, Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that his country’s nuclear doctrine is “a living instrument” that can be changed.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also warned that Moscow could amend its nuclear doctrine because of “the unacceptable and escalatory actions” of the West.

Ryabkov didn’t elaborate on what specific changes could be made, but said recent actions by the U.S. and Ukraine’s other NATO allies were forcing Moscow to think the decision through.

“The challenges that are multiplying as a result of the unacceptable and escalatory actions of the United States and its NATO allies, without any doubt, raise before us the full question of how the basic documents in the field of nuclear deterrence can be brought more into line with current needs,” Ryabkov was cited by Russia’s state-run news agency Interfax as saying on June 11.

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