At the weekend, Putin caused a stir and concern with the announcement that the nuclear power Russia’s deterrent weapons would be put on special alert. Although Russia, like the USA and other countries, has been investing in its nuclear armament for decades, Putin’s threat has brought this fact back to mind – with all the associated fears and worries that the Cold War brought with it, for example.
This fear is unfounded, says Brigadier Philipp Eder, head of the military strategy department in the general staff of the Austrian army, to ORF.at. According to current Russian regulations, Putin can only use nuclear weapons in certain situations, such as an invasion of his own country or an attack on Russia. There are also four levels, currently level one (after level 0) has been reached.
Putin’s announcement also referred to strategic weapons, “deterrent forces” as Putin himself said – he did not explicitly mention nuclear weapons at the weekend. These deterrent weapons – including fixed missile silos on submarines or mobile launch pads as well as long-range strategic bombers – are intended to deter or deter other states from attacking Russia.
Putin’s fear of foreign peacekeepers
These nuclear weapons, like those of other countries, are aimed at specific strategic targets, including those in the United States and other countries that Russia counts among its enemies, including targets in NATO countries such as military installations. In contrast, tactical weapons, such as short-range missiles with nuclear warheads, are primarily used directly in combat, although the boundaries can be fluid. According to Russia, the strategic missile troops, the Northern and Pacific fleets and the long-distance aviation forces were on increased alert.
Negotiations and sustained attacks
While delegations from Russia and Ukraine met for talks in Belarus for the first time, Russian attacks continue unabated. Dozens of civilians are said to have been killed, and Kyiv is preparing for a major Russian attack.
Eder believes that Putin’s threat, which is primarily aimed at NATO, is a response to recent announcements about the massive arms deliveries to Ukraine. In addition, he could use them as a pledge in the negotiations. According to the strategy expert, Putin is currently positioning himself like in a chess game, the president wants to prevent western “peacekeeping troops” – analogous to the Russian ones – from coming to Ukraine.
NATO does not want to be provoked
Asked about Putin’s general strategy, Eder said that he always tries to be one step ahead. Many of his recent actions, including the annexation of Crimea and the intervention in Syria, were not expected – although the Russian President has repeatedly said that the West should leave Ukraine alone.
He, Eder, is concerned about Putin’s catalog of demands, including the reversal of NATO’s eastward expansion – that would affect Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also Romania, Bulgaria and Montenegro. NATO is trying not to be provoked by Putin, Eder also referred to the West’s “non-reaction” to the nuclear threat posed by Putin. However, that doesn’t solve the problem that Putin is dangerous and that the West has been considerate of him for 30 years.
The United States, for its part, said on Monday that it saw no reason to raise the nuclear alert level. So far there have been no particular abnormalities. However, Russia is apparently increasingly frustrated by the slow progress in Kyiv.
Strategic move instead of a real threat?
Other experts see Putin’s nuclear threat more as a strategic move than as a real threat. According to Marc Finaud from the Center for Security Policy in Geneva, some of the Russian nuclear weapons are always ready for use anyway, just like those in NATO. According to an article by experts Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda published late last week in the respected Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russia currently has nearly 1,600 operational nuclear warheads.
In view of the Ukrainian resistance, Russia is simply frustrated, hence the threat of nuclear weapons, says David Khalfa of the Jean Jaures Foundation in Paris. Eder agrees that Putin misjudged Ukraine, for example in the assumption that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would flee immediately in the event of an attack – which, as is well known, he did not do. Putin fears democracy in Ukraine and the associated effects, such as the Maidan protests in 2013/14.
Russia wants to manipulate public opinion
With the threat of nuclear weapons, one also wants to undermine solidarity and unity in the West – and to unsettle the population in the West and thus manipulate public opinion, according to Khalfa. However, according to other experts, it would be difficult for Putin to get out of the situation without losing face – basically, Putin could only continue on the current path, with all the consequences.
In the center: Where is the war in Ukraine leading?
With the attack on Ukraine, Russian President Putin destroyed the European peace and security architecture. Apparently he wants to bring Ukraine under his military and political control. Putin not only accepts civilian casualties, economic sanctions by the USA and the EU have not impressed him either.
At the moment, however, no one dares to make a real statement about Putin’s strategy. Putin is in a “paranoid logic,” says Khalfa, for example, that it is “impossible to really read his strategy.” Eder also believed that plans could change quickly during the war. Western politicians report that real communication with Putin is hardly possible. It is “difficult to keep a channel open to someone who lies, cheats, who is completely unpredictable,” said German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD).
Speculations about Putin’s motivation
According to Eder, it is difficult to tell from the outside whether Putin wants to establish Ukraine as a vassal state, i.e. as a state controlled from Russia, as is often assumed, or whether he simply wants to distract attention from the poor economic situation in his own country. However, the attack on Ukraine is difficult to sell as an internal signal, because after all it is a matter of a “brother nation” and many Russians do not understand why there is a fight against Ukraine – provided that they often state-controlled and censored it media at all.
It is also unclear why Putin is attacking Ukraine now, after years of denying the neighboring country’s right to exist. He may have spotted a weakness in NATO or Western countries. But there are also increasing theses that Putin has only coped with the pandemic and the apparently rock-hard self-isolation mentally well to a limited extent.
Stronger action expected in Ukraine
Apart from that, national and international experts expect that Putin will significantly tighten the pace in Ukraine. Russia is slowly but steadily transitioning from “moderate” to “full-spectrum” warfare, Colonel Markus Reisner of the Theresa Military Academy said on Monday. He expects devastating weapons systems to also be used in urban neighborhoods, including banned incendiary weapons and outlawed cluster bombs, Reisner said.
Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said: “We have to prepare for what could come next, which could be ruthless, indiscriminate bombing of cities. That will be terrible.” The fact that Russia, together with China, the USA, Great Britain and France, issued a joint declaration on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the beginning of the year with the aim of a nuclear-weapon-free world and the avoidance of nuclear war only helps to a limited extent.