Russia's ominous nuclear rhetoric is backfiring, say analysts

By Sultan Musayev | 2024-10-02

ALMATY -- As military failures pile up and prospects dim for achieving its objectives in Ukraine, Russia is increasingly resorting to nuclear threats in an attempt to weaken Western support for Ukraine.

An updated nuclear doctrine that will allow Moscow to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states should be seen as a warning to the West, the Kremlin said September 26.

A day before, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to broaden Russia's rules on the use of its nuclear weaponry, allowing it to unleash a nuclear response in the event of a "massive" air attack.

The proposals would permit Moscow to respond with nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states if they are supported by nuclear powers -- a clear reference to Ukraine and its Western backers.

The planned changes "must be considered a certain signal," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

"A signal that warns these countries of the consequences if they participate in an attack on our country by various means, not necessarily nuclear," Peskov told reporters.

Russia is adjusting its "nuclear doctrine in connection with the injection of tension on its borders," he said.

However, the Russian Security Council has not discussed boosting its nuclear arsenal, he said.

Since the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, members of different strata of Russian society -- from bloggers and political analysts to members of parliament and Putin himself -- have continually spouted nuclear rhetoric in Moscow.

In the most recent example, in September, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev again spoke out sharply about the potential for nuclear escalation.

Medvedev, a former president of Russia who has made incendiary comments since the beginning of the war, warned the West that it could face "irreversible consequences" if it continues to support Ukraine.

Moscow has not yet made a decision about using nuclear weapons because it "has been patient," but this will not be the case for long, he said.

"You can test someone's patience for only so long," Medvedev blustered in a post on Telegram.

Medvedev made these comments as the United States and European allies have been discussing whether they need to allow Ukraine to use US long-range missiles to strike missile launchers -- which Russia regularly uses to shell Ukraine -- on Russian territory.

'The opposite effect'

The main goal of Russia's nuclear rhetoric is to intimidate the Western countries and force them to reduce or cut off their military support for Ukraine, said Mars Abayev, a political correspondent for Orbita.kg.

"But instead of weakening the resolve of the United States and European Union, these nuclear threats have had the opposite effect," Abayev told Global Watch.

"The West has continued to step up weapon deliveries and hardened its support for Ukraine, especially since the atrocities in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities were uncovered," he said, referring to massacres carried out by the Russian military at the start of the invasion.

"The tactic of using nuclear weapons to intimidate has fallen flat," Abayev added.

That is because the ultimatums themselves carry no weight, say observers.

The good news is that Russia's regime has a sense of self-preservation and will not escalate to a nuclear war, Sergey Duvanov, a political correspondent and director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, said.

At the same time, it is also evident that Moscow's attempt to play the nuclear trump card was doomed to fail, Duvanov told Global Watch.

"If Putin had known that Kyiv and the countries supporting it wouldn't succumb to his nuclear blackmail, he never would have tested fate," Duvanov said.

"But when he sees that everyone around him is afraid, of course he's going to try to exploit that fear to his advantage."

No one should give politicians like Putin a chance for success, he said.

Such politicians "need to know unambiguously that any action they take that is out of step with civilized norms and rules will be met with an appropriate response," Duvanov said.

'Unacceptable'

Meanwhile, the nuclear rhetoric has damaged Russia's reputation on the world stage, amplifying the image of Russia as an aggressor state.

This damage makes it hard for Moscow to seek out new allies and partners: the international community is not willing to support a country that recklessly invokes weapons of mass destruction.

Finland and Sweden have joined NATO, while Japan and South Korea have deepened their military co-operation with the United States.

The Kremlin's nuclear saber-rattling is irritating even Beijing, one of Russia's few remaining allies who are willing to continue to provide support.

Chinese President Xi Jinping personally warned Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine when Xi traveled to Russia in March 2023, the Financial Times reported in July 2023, citing senior Western and Chinese officials.

Beijing's official position has not changed since then: nuclear escalation is unacceptable.

For China "it's disadvantageous and unacceptable even to allow the use of nuclear weapons," Petro Shevchenko, a graduate student at Jilin University in China, told Current Time in July 2023.

"First, there's the matter of relations with Europe, which for China are becoming more important as competition with the United States intensifies," Shevchenko said.

Furthermore, Beijing is not prepared for a great-power nuclear confrontation because China has fewer nuclear warheads than do Russia and the United States, according to Shevchenko, a political analyst and China specialist.

If a nuclear war erupts, China will be drawn into it, he said.