Russia’s aggressive posturing sets the stage for upcoming discussions on US nuclear weapons policy and modernization.
Former Pentagon adviser says Kremlin has 10 times the tactical nukes its Western adversaries have and may be tempted ’to roll the dice’ in pressing advantage.
News Analysis
While it’s easy to dismiss Russia’s most recent threat to use tactical nuclear weapons, the circumstances and specificity—menacing British military installations “outside Ukraine”—are raising eyebrows, if not overt alarm.
“Oh, I for sure think it’s real,” said Robert Peters, a research fellow for Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security.
“Russia has been telegraphing nuclear threats for 18 months,” he told The Epoch Times. “It has performed miserably in Ukraine. This has become regime survival for [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin.
“If he loses in Ukraine, that’s the end of the system he’s spent a quarter-century building; of course, he’d use nuclear weapons to defend that system.”
But Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation Senior Policy Director John Erath said the Kremlin’s threat to use tactical “low-yield” nuclear weapons doesn’t make sense since Russia has ample conventional munitions it’s “shown no hesitancy to use.”
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“They are already using their nuclear weapons. They have made a very clear choice to use their nuclear weapons, including their non-strategic weapons, as a tool of diplomacy—for blackmail,” he told The Epoch Times.
The Kremlin warned the United Kingdom and France that if weapons they provide Ukraine are used inside Russia, or if they send troops to assist Kyiv, they are “de facto recognized” as combatants and risk attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on May 6 that Russian forces will stage tactical nuclear weapons exercises in “the immediate future” in response to “provocative statements and threats of certain Western officials.”
The ministry cited statements by UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron that Kyiv “has that right” to use British weapons to strike inside Russia, and by French President Emmanuel Macron that French troops could “have a role to play” in Ukraine.
That rhetoric simmered further after UK Ambassador to Russia Nigel Casey was summoned to Russia’s Foreign Ministry to field a formal protest.
Both sides claim they lectured each other during the discussion, which Russians call a rebuke and the British describe as a meeting.
In an ensuing statement, the Kremlin warned the UK that “any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and abroad could be targeted,” stressing UK military bases “outside Ukraine” are fair game.
Mr. Putin and the Kremlin have been threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons with increasing frequency since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
This round, too, has generally been dismissed.
The Pentagon, for instance, announced no precautionary actions in response to the threats.
