Russia suggests reducing conditions for nuclear weapon use

Russia is “constantly” analyzing the threshold for using nuclear weapons, according to a top foreign ministry official.

“At the moment, nothing has changed in this regard, but the situation itself is changing,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Thursday, per a state media translation. “As a result, the way basic documents in this field relate to the needs of maintaining our security is constantly analyzed.”

Ryabkov acknowledged the possibility of lowering the bar for nuclear weapons usage just days after Russian defense officials announced a military drill involving those weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin has used nuclear saber-rattling as a method to constrain Western assistance to Ukraine over the last two years.

“Russia will do utmost to avoid a global confrontation, but it will not allow itself to be threatened,” Putin said Thursday during an event marking the anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Nazi Germany during the Second World War. “Our strategic forces are always in combat readiness.”

The efficacy of Russia’s nuclear threats has eroded over the last two years as Western governments gradually have stepped up the quality and quantity of the military equipment they send to Ukraine. And some NATO allies are chafing at the idea of deferring to Putin’s nuclear threats given the negative consequences for Ukraine and the trans-Atlantic alliance if the war ends with a Russian victory.

If we just thought about the Russian response, then we could not send anything,” Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte told the Financial Times this week. “Every second week, you hear that somebody will be nuked.”

Simonyte and some other NATO members have begun to speak of upgrading their support for Ukraine in part due to a growing anxiety that the protracted lapse in U.S. aid to Ukraine has raised the specter of a crisis on the battlefield.

“If the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today, we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question,” French President Emmanuel Macron told the Economist in a recent interview. “It would be wrong in terms of credibility and deterrence vis-a-vis the Russians to rule it out. I note, by the way, that the aggressiveness of the Russian response to what I said showed that this was having the desired effect, which was to say: Don’t think that we will stop here if you don’t stop.”

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Russian officials responded by announcing snap drills involving their so-called low-yield nuclear forces. Those military exercises involve the weapons that Western officials perceive as most likely to be used if the Kremlin decides to use nuclear weapons in an offensive military campaign.

“We warn our opponents that their course towards escalation will, of course, prompt the need for us to take steps that actually mean enhancing deterrence measures,” Ryabkov said. “The drills of practicing the skills of employing nonstrategic nuclear weapons are an element of these efforts.”