Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the 19th of November, approved an updated nuclear doctrine that says Russia could consider using nuclear weapons in the event of a conventional missile attack against it backed by a nuclear power, just days after the Joe Biden administration allegedly allowed Ukraine to launch American missiles deep into Russian territory, reports Reuters.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the revised doctrine would theoretically lower the threshold for first use of nuclear weapons.
The new doctrine says Russia would consider a nuclear strike if it or its ally Belarus faced “conventional weapons aggression that would pose a critical threat to its sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity”.
The previous doctrine provided that Russia could use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or an attack by conventional weapons that would threaten the existence of the state.
The updated doctrine, which sets out the threats that would lead the Russian leadership to consider a nuclear strike, says that an attack with conventional missiles, drones or other aircraft could be considered to meet the criteria for a nuclear response.
It also states that any aggression against Russia by a member of the coalition will be considered by Moscow as aggression against Russia by the coalition as a whole.
“Aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies by any non-nuclear-weapon state, with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, shall be considered a joint attack by them,” the doctrine states. “Aggression by any state of the military coalition (bloc, alliance) against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies shall be considered as aggression of the whole coalition (bloc, alliance).”
The Kremlin stated that Russia considers nuclear weapons as a deterrent and that the purpose of the updated text is to make it absolutely clear to potential enemies that if they attack Russia, retaliation will be inevitable.
Russia and the US together control 88% of the world’s nuclear warheads. Putin is Russia’s main decision-maker on the use of its nuclear arsenal.
The two-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine has triggered the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which is considered the moment when the two Cold War powers came closest to a deliberate nuclear war.
The announced decision on the use of US missiles by the outgoing Biden administration, although not yet confirmed by Washington, has exacerbated tensions over Ukraine. Washington claims that Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops in Russia is an escalation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on reports that the Kyiv could use US-made ATACMS missiles to support a Ukrainian military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, said on Tuesday that the Russian military was monitoring the situation very closely.
“The purpose of nuclear deterrence is to ensure that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies,” Peskov said.