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9:21 28.09.2024 •
After some confusion, the Western press has begun to comment on Vladimir Putin's statement on the modification of Russia's Nuclear Doctrine.
Intelligence agencies concluded that granting Ukraine’s request to use Western missiles against targets deep in Russia could prompt forceful retaliation while not fundamentally changing the course of the war, writes
U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Russia is likely to retaliate with greater force against the United States and its coalition partners, possibly with lethal attacks, if they agree to give the Ukrainians permission to employ U.S., British and French-supplied long-range missiles for strikes deep inside Russia, U.S. officials said.
The intelligence assessment, which has not been previously reported, also plays down the effect that the long-range missiles will have on the course of the conflict because the Ukrainians currently have limited numbers of the weapons and it is unclear how many more, if any, the Western allies might provide.
The intelligence assessment describes a range of possible Russian responses to a decision to allow long-range strikes using U.S. and European-supplied missiles — from stepped up acts of arson and sabotage targeting facilities in Europe, to potentially lethal attacks on U.S. and European military bases.
Mr. Putin’s rhetoric has been especially bellicose in recent days in anticipation of a decision on long-range strikes, and at least some of Mr. Biden’s top advisers believe that he is likely to respond with lethal force if the decision goes Mr. Zelensky’s way.
A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the assessment. A spokeswoman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
The United States and its coalition partners have provided the Ukrainians with three types of long-range missile systems — American-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS; British-made Storm Shadow missiles; and French-supplied SCALP missiles.
Some of these missiles have already been used by the Ukrainians to strike Russian military targets in and around the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
But in their assessment, U.S. intelligence agencies express doubt that, even if the Ukrainians were permitted to use the long-range missiles, they would have enough of them to alter the course of the conflict in a fundamental way.
Vladimir Putin has issued a stark threat to Ukraine’s Nato allies, saying he would expand Russia’s nuclear doctrine to potentially cover attacks against his country using advanced western missiles.
Speaking to his security council on Wednesday, the Russian president said he would deem nuclear powers to have attacked Russia if they “participated in or supported [...] aggression” by a country using conventional weapons against them.
Putin’s threats were a clear message to Ukraine’s western allies as the US and UK deliberate letting Kyiv hit targets deep inside Russia with western-made Storm Shadow missiles.
Though Putin said Russia could respond to a conventional attack with nuclear weapons, he did not say whether it would do so if hit by the western missiles. He also did not specify which countries could be targets for Moscow’s retaliation.
But the threats, which are expected to be codified in Russian doctrine, were among the most direct the president has made to use nuclear weapons since announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.
The changes could mark a significant lowering of Russia’s declared nuclear threshold and spell out more criteria for Russia to potentially authorise nuclear strikes, experts said.
Putin said that Russia could use nuclear weapons after receiving “reliable information” about a massed aerial assault by aircraft, missiles and drones. Moscow would also consider an attack against its ally Belarus to be an attack on Russia itself and could defend it with nuclear weapons.
The US, UK, and France — Nato’s three nuclear powers — are considering requests from Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia.
Putin has previously warned the US and other Nato countries against allowing Ukraine to hit Russian targets with Storm Shadows, which he said would mean Russia and Nato would be at war.
CNN:
The 2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis - considered to be the closest the two Cold War superpowers came to intentional nuclear war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging Kyiv’s allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western missiles, including long-range US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows, deep into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks.
Zelensky has urged the West to cross and disregard Russia’s so-called “red lines,” and some Western allies have urged the United States to do just that, though Putin’s Russia, which controls just under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has warned that the West and Ukraine are risking a global war.
Russia is the world’s largest nuclear power. Together, Russia and the US control 88% of the world’s nuclear warheads.
While the Russian president did not directly mention Ukraine and its Western allies, the reference is obvious, at a time when kyiv is demanding authorization to strike Russian territory with longer-range missiles. A green light that the United States is still holding back from giving, fearing Moscow's reaction. In mid-September, Vladimir Putin had also warned that such a decision would mean that "NATO countries are at war with Russia".
The "clarifications" provided by Vladimir Putin on Wednesday support the warning message by suggesting the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a large-scale air attack, if Ukraine – a country that does not have a nuclear army – were supported by so-called "nuclear-armed" powers (the United States, Great Britain, France, etc.). "We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia or Belarus," the Russian president even specified, citing Moscow's closest ally.
Some influential Russian experts believe that Russian deterrence is no longer effective, having failed, for example, to prevent the steady increase in Western support for Ukrainian forces, which Moscow calls co-belligerence. "The time has come to declare that we have the right to respond to any massive attack on our territory with a nuclear strike. This also applies to any seizure of our territory," the influential Sergei Karaganov, a political scientist highly regarded by the Kremlin, recently declared in an interview with the newspaper Kommersant.
These words resonated all the more strongly after the entry of Ukrainian troops into the Russian region of Kursk on August 6, an unprecedented foreign incursion since the Second World War. "All current and future adversaries must be convinced that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons," added Sergei Karaganov, who advocates an update of Russian doctrine in order to introduce, he insists, the notion of "nuclear escalation."
While Vladimir Putin did not repeat this formula on Wednesday, the meaning of the changes in nuclear policy that he suggests could be similar. "We see that the current military and political situation is evolving very dynamically and we must take this into account," explained the Kremlin leader, without giving further details.
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