The Kremlin might have been let down Wednesday if it had hoped to lower the bar for its use of nuclear weapons in order to frighten its adversaries in the West.
The United States and its allies’ increased support for Ukraine seemed to be a thinly veiled threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expanded nuclear strategy.
The revised pact now permits Moscow to strike with nuclear weapons in the event that a non-nuclear nation, like Ukraine, that is backed by a nuclear state, like the United States, launches an attack. On the same day that Kyiv launched its first long-range ATACMS missiles against Russia, it was officially approved.
However, foreign leaders and analysts expressed concerns that the shift amounted to much more than a new and more concentrated effort to discourage the West, even while the likelihood of Putin using a devastating nuclear bomb in his battle with Ukraine is never zero.
“I don’t see any indication that Moscow is imminently intent on using nuclear weapons,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told NBC News.
On the 1,000th day following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, he stated, “I don’t see a change in their strategic force posture and so we’ll continue to remain vigilant in this regard.”
According to Austin, Putin has rattled his nuclear saber a lot, which is risky behavior.
In public, Kyiv’s European allies were equally unimpressed as Washington.
At a press appearance in Brazil on Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated that our support for Ukraine will not be weakened by Russia’s reckless rhetoric. “We are not intimidated,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, dismissing Putin’s choice as hyperbole. Putin’s threat of nuclear escalation was also denounced by European Union foreign policy leader Joseph Borrell as “completely irresponsible.”
The Kremlin appeared keen to capitalize on the perception of escalating hostilities.
A special hotline intended to defuse tensions between the White House and the Kremlin is not in operation at the moment, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson, told the Russian news outlet Tass on Wednesday.
However, experts told NBC News that behind such statements from Western officials is a belief that the modification of Russia’s nuclear doctrine is more of a propaganda tactic supported by a potent arsenal but undermined by its frequent deployment than by a significant change in Moscow’s intentions.
According to Keir Giles, senior consultant fellow with the London-based think tank Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia program, Russia’s action will coincide with the Western push by its supporters to portray the relaxation of constraints on ATACMS strikes into Russia as a risky escalation.
Russia uses threatening rhetoric on paper to weaken the commitment of the departing Biden administration because there isn’t much it can do practically in retaliation. Giles told NBC News that it would be frustrating for Moscow if this most recent action didn’t have an impact because direct and indirect nuclear threats have previously been so successful in discouraging Biden from completely supporting Ukraine.
Following months of Ukrainian appeals and Moscow’s dire threats, the Biden administration reversed its decision to let Kyiv to employ long-range American weaponry for limited strikes inside Russia.
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