Western capitals are drawing up contingency plans if Vladimir Putin takes action to follow through on his threats of nuclear attacks on Ukraine and sending private warnings to the Kremlin about the possible consequences, Western officials say.
The Russian president’s nuclear warnings are “an issue that we need to take very seriously,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CBS on Sunday.
“We communicated directly, privately at very high levels in the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will have catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the United States and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what it will entail,” he said.
Though they believe Putin’s threats are unlikely to materialize and signal a formal shift in the Kremlin’s nuclear strategy, Kyiv’s allies are increasing nuclear vigilance and deterrence, according to five Western officials who spoke on Monday. on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. .
“If he thinks the threat will intimidate Ukraine into surrendering or giving up 20% of its territory, or intimidating us into not helping Ukraine, the opposite has happened,” he said. said a senior US official.
Two other Western officials said a nuclear strike on Ukraine would likely not trigger in-kind retaliation, but rather trigger conventional military responses from Western states to punish Russia. One said: “There are a lot of red lines and they are probably not where [Putin] says they are.
The West’s assessment is that Putin’s warnings that he is “not bluffing” about launching nuclear attacks on Ukraine are designed to regain momentum after Russian setbacks on the battlefield. The threats come as Moscow prepares to annex occupied territories in eastern Ukraine following hastily organized referendums by Kremlin proxies.
Putin’s plan appears to portray the war as a defensive conflict after claiming those areas as part of Russia, officials and analysts say. The Russian president accused the West of “nuclear blackmail” and claimed without proof that Ukraine was developing weapons of mass destruction to threaten Moscow.
According to Russian nuclear doctrine, this could justify the use of nuclear weapons to protect the country’s territorial integrity.
“We have our own military potential. If someone thinks we won’t use it in the event of a serious threat, then they are wrong,” said Dmitry Novikov, deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. “And if you’re willing to use those kinds of weapons, we won’t let ours rust.”
If Putin resorts to nuclear weapons, the most likely scenario could be that he would test or use a tactical nuclear weapon – a smaller, more targeted device designed for use on a battlefield – to deter the West from supporting Ukraine, officials and analysts said. .
US President Joe Biden has said that if Putin uses nuclear weapons, Washington’s response will be “substantial. . . depending on the magnitude of what they do, will determine what response will occur”.
Three of the five officials said NATO member states had also conveyed this message privately to Moscow, underscoring the magnitude of the response any use of nuclear weapons would trigger. They implied that this threat of retaliation would continue to be the best deterrent.
“We sent similar private messages, even more specific about the impact this would have on Russia’s status as a pariah state, and our response,” the senior US official said.
The United States also discussed scenarios with the Ukrainians on possible nuclear use and reviewed “protection and security,” the official added.
The logistics of deploying nuclear weapons are complex, time-consuming and would be easily picked up by Western intelligence satellites. This means that Putin can escalate the nuclear threat by taking several steps before he gets to the point of actually using weapons. It would also allow the West to adjust its preparedness.
“Russian nuclear weapons are staged in hardened shelters across the country. . . The process of transitioning to readiness, the coupling of warheads to delivery platforms, would generate a lot of observable phenomena for US intelligence,” said Simon Miles, assistant professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at the Duke University. “And, an opportunity for Washington to impress upon the Kremlin how bad an idea that would be.”
While Putin could gradually mobilize Russia’s nuclear arsenal by ostensibly moving weapons and people, this is a step he has not taken after previously making nuclear threats, analysts say.
“Putin would much rather threaten to use nuclear weapons and obtain concessions than use them,” said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Russia’s poor coordination of its conventional military units since the start of its invasion of Ukraine suggests nuclear strikes may not materially change the outcome on the battlefield, some military experts have also said.
“You need some sort of integration with your conventional forces, whether you want to stop an attack or move forward. They haven’t really demonstrated that they can do it,” said Pavel Podvig, senior fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.
Russia’s mixed record of conventional strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure also indicates that a nuclear attack could go awry, he said.
The Ukrainians “could shoot down a [nuclear-armed] cruise missile, or a cruise missile could stray and hit a residential building. There is such a risk, considerable uncertainty as to the success of a strike.