Putin's nuclear saber rattling is reducing his wartime options

By Global Watch and AFP | 2024-10-30

Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw his army's nuclear drills this week after calling for changes to rules on the use of Moscow's nuclear deterrent.

Russia's Defense Ministry on October 29 said a "training exercise was conducted with the forces and means of the land, maritime and aviation components of the strategic deterrent force" and that an "intercontinental ballistic missile was launched."

The ministry said the missile was launched at a test site on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Far East.

Other missiles were launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea in the Arctic and from the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East.

The ministry said the drills were conducted successfully and that the missiles had "reached their targets."

The TASS news agency published footage of a missile being launched in the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Russian Far North.

Putin has raised the prospect of using nuclear weapons during Moscow's offensive in Ukraine several times and last month suggested Russia broaden its rules on using nuclear weaponry.

In September, Putin suggested that Moscow change its nuclear doctrine to allow it to unleash a nuclear response in the event of a "massive" attack.

Under the proposed rules, Russia would consider any attack by a non-nuclear country supported by a nuclear power as a joint attack by both, in a seeming reference to Ukraine.

The plans came as Ukraine is seeking authorization from Western allies to use long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Pressuring himself

By repeatedly invoking nuclear threats, Putin is putting himself under pressure to act on the use of nuclear weapons -- not only against Ukraine but also its NATO backers, analysts say.

Putin wants to lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons, said Maxim Starchak, a defense scholar at Queen's University in Canada.

"Putin counts on the introduction of an additional -- nuclear -- factor in the Ukraine war. He believes and hopes that this will work," he told AFP in September.

Putin has few options two and a half years into the war, a senior European military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, "Putin went all in. He therefore has little capacity for escalation," the official said.

He outlined three options at Putin's disposal: nuclear rhetoric, nuclear weapons and hybrid warfare against the West.