Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, and Moscow said Ukraine had struck deep inside Russia with US-made ATACMS missiles. Ukraine fires US missile into Russia
Putin approved the change days after two U.S. officials and a source familiar with the decision said on Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia.
Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British, and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
The updated Russian nuclear doctrine, establishing a framework for conditions under which Putin could order a strike from the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, was approved by him on Tuesday, according to a published decree.
“The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack,” said Alexander Graef, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg
The main changes to the nuclear doctrine were flagged by Putin in September.
Asked whether publication of the decree was linked to Washington’s decision on allowing Ukraine to fire U.S. missiles deep into Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the doctrine had been published in a “timely manner”.
“Nuclear deterrence is aimed at ensuring that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies,” Peskov said.