How real is Putin’s nuclear threat in Ukraine?
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the Kremlin will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons to thwart Ukraine’s efforts to regain control of Moscow-held territories.
While the West dismissed it as a scare tactic, a top Putin lieutenant boldly said the US and its NATO allies would not dare attack Russia, even if they used nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
What made Putin threaten?
A Ukrainian counteroffensive this month forced Russian troops to retreat from a wide swath of northeastern Kharkiv region and handed Moscow its most humiliating defeat since the first week of the war.
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The Kremlin then accelerated its orchestrated “referendum” in the occupied territories, asking whether they wanted to come under Moscow’s rule. Condemned by Kyiv and the West as illegal and rigged before the vote even began, Russia is expected to produce the results it wanted.
Moscow has said that after annexing the territories, it will view Ukraine’s attacks on them as aggression and respond accordingly.
Putin made more bets by mobilizing reservists for the war, aiming for at least 300,000 daka. But the effort is proving widely unpopular, with thousands fleeing Russia and fueling protests and violence that threaten to destabilize the country.
However, this mobilization will not provide a quick fix for the military. Running out of conventional options, Putin is increasingly erratic and appears tempted to reach for nuclear weapons to avoid a defeat that could threaten his 22-year rule.
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He repeatedly spoke of using them with frightening ease. He calmly states that Moscow’s enemies will die before they have time to repent of their sins and once admits that nuclear war would be disastrous, “but why do we need a world without Russia?”
What is in the nuclear arsenal?
From the Cold War era. Russia and the United States maintain a nuclear parity, together accounting for nearly 90% of the world’s nuclear arsenal.
According to information exchanged earlier this year under the New START arms reduction treaty between Moscow and Washington, Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads for strategic forces, and the United States has 5,428. Each warhead is far more powerful than the bombs dropped by the United States on two Japanese cities at the end of World War II, using only nuclear weapons.
The New START treaty limits US and Russian strategic arsenals, including nuclear-tipped land- and submarine-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.
In addition, however, Moscow and Washington possess a large, undisclosed number of what are known as strategic nuclear weapons.
They are designed for battlefield use and have a lower yield than tactical warheads designed to destroy entire cities.
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These tactical weapons include bombs, artillery ordnance or warheads for short-range missiles and are intended to inflict a crushing blow on troops in a specific area of the front line.
What about using a tactical nuclear weapon?
A tactical nuclear weapons strike against Ukraine would not have the same degree of catastrophic consequences as an attack with strategic warheads.
But even a low-yield nuclear weapon used on a battlefield, in addition to killing soldiers in the immediate vicinity, would still contaminate a wide area and expose large numbers of civilians in densely populated Ukraine and neighboring countries to radiation risk.
In fact, Russia and its ally Belarus will face the highest pollution risk due to prevailing winds.
How real is Putin’s nuclear threat in Ukraine?
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by News East India staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
