Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons exercises to deter West

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it would practice deploying tactical nuclear weapons in a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has repeatedly warned of increasing nuclear risks — warnings that the United States says it must take seriously, even as U.S. officials say they do not. noting any change in Russia's nuclear posture.

Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of confrontation between nuclear powers by supporting Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it would hold military exercises, including preparation and deployment exercises for the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. He said the exercises were ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

“During the exercise, a series of measures will be implemented to put into practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the ministry said.

The missile forces of the Southern Military District, the aviation and the navy will take part in it, the Defense Ministry said.

The exercise aims to ensure Russia's territorial integrity and sovereignty “in response to provocative statements and threats by some Western officials against the Russian Federation”, he added.

Russia and the United States are by far the world's largest nuclear powers, holding more than 10,600 of the world's 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and Britain.

Russia has approximately 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, although there is uncertainty over the exact numbers for these weapons due to a lack of transparency.

No power has used nuclear weapons in war since the United States launched the first atomic attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Major nuclear powers regularly test their nuclear weapons, but very rarely publicly link these exercises to specific perceived threats, as Russia does.

NUCLEAR RISKS

US President Joe Biden said last year that he believed there was no real prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons, but CNN reported that senior US officials had drawn up contingency plans in view of a possible Russian nuclear strike against Ukraine in 2022.

Some Western and Ukrainian officials have said Russia is bluffing about nuclear weapons to scare the West, even though the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia's existence was threatened.

“We don’t see anything new here,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence. “Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of the Putin regime.”

The Defense Ministry, led by longtime Putin ally Sergei Shoigu, did not specify which specific Western officials it was referring to in its statement.

The Kremlin said it was a response to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, British officials and a U.S. Senate official.

Macron has publicly floated the idea of ​​sending European troops to fight Russia in Ukraine, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said Ukraine has the right to use weapons supplied by London to strike targets in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western statements about sending NATO troops to Ukraine constituted “a completely new escalation of tensions – this is unprecedented and of course requires special attention and special measures.

Putin warned the West in March that direct conflict between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War III, but said almost no one wanted such a scenario.

WAR GAMES

NATO, created in 1949 to ensure collective security against the Soviet Union, is currently organizing the “Steadfast Defender” exercise, the largest since the end of the Cold War. NATO did not specify whether it would include the repetition of a nuclear element.

A 1983 NATO-led nuclear command exercise raised fears at the highest levels of the Kremlin that the United States was preparing for a surprise nuclear attack.

Putin has faced calls in Russia from some hard-liners for a change to Russia's nuclear doctrine, which sets out the conditions under which Russia would use a nuclear weapon, even though Putin has said last year that he didn't see the need for change.

Broadly speaking, the doctrine says that such a weapon would be used in response to an attack using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, or to the use of conventional weapons against Russia “when the very existence of the State is threatened.”

Putin presents the war as part of a centuries-old battle with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 by expanding NATO and encroaching on what Moscow considers as Russia's historical sphere of influence.

Ukraine and its Western backers say the war is an imperial land grab by a corrupt dictatorship. Western leaders have pledged to work to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, while ruling out any deployment of NATO personnel there.

(Editing by Nick Macfie and Sharon Singleton)