Will Russia use nuclear weapons? Experts analyze Putin's warnings

President Vladimir Putin, who rules the world’s largest nuclear power, has repeatedly warned the West that any attack on Russia could provoke a response

Will Putin use nuclear weapons, how many such weapons is he in charge of, and how might the United States and the US military alliance respond? US-led NATO?

Nuclear stakes are further raised

For now, analysts cautiously suggest that the risk of Putin using the world’s largest nuclear arsenal still appears low. CIA says that he has seen no signs of an imminent Russian nuclear attack.

However, his promises to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia while waging the war in Ukraine are taking themselves very seriously. And your statement on Friday that the United States nests “created a precedent” by dropping atomic bombs in World War II further increased the nuclear stakes.

The White House has warned of “catastrophic consequences for Russia” if Putin goes nuclear.

But no one knows if that will stop Putin. Nervous Kremlin watchers acknowledge they can’t be sure what he’s thinking or even whether he’s rational and well-informed.

In a call with Zelensky, President Biden and Vice President Harris said the United States “will never recognize” Russia’s annexationshttps://t.co/8E2rANIJT7 pic.twitter.com/BqN0mM0uML

— CNN en Español (@CNNEE) October 4, 1945

Putin, appetite for the politics of risk

The former KGB agent has shown a great appetite for risk and the politics of risk . It is difficult, even for Western intelligence agencies with spy satellites, to know if Putin is cheating or is really determined to break the nuclear taboo.

“We do not see any practical evidence today in the United States intelligence community that it is approaching the actual use, that there is an imminent threat of using tactical nuclear weapons,” CIA Director William Burns told CBS News.

“What we have What to do is take it very seriously, be on the lookout for signs of real preparations,” Burns said.

“Nuclear weapons are not a magic wand”

Kremlin watchers are scratching their heads in part because they don’t see how nuclear power could go a long way toward reversing Russia’s military losses in Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops are not using large concentrations of tanks to regain ground, and the fighting is sometimes for places as small as villages. So what could Russian nuclear forces aim for with a winning effect?

“Nuclear weapons are not a magic wand,” said Andrey Baklitskiy, lead researcher of the UN Disarmament Research Institute, specializing in nuclear risk. “They are not something that is simply used and solves all the problems.”

“In Russia it is still a taboo to cross that threshold”

Analysts they hope that the taboo surrounding nuclear weapons will be a deterrent. The horrific scale of human suffering in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the United States destroyed Japanese cities with atomic bombs on August 6 and 9, 1945, was a powerful argument against the repetition of the use of such weapons. The attacks killed 200.000 people.

Since then, no country has used a nuclear weapon. Analysts surmise that even Putin may have a hard time becoming the first world leader since US President Harry Truman to rain down nuclear fire.

“In Russia it is still a taboo to cross that threshold,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at RAND Corp. and a former analyst of Russian military capabilities at the US Department of Defense.

“One of the biggest decisions in the history of the Earth,” said Baklitskiy. The reaction could turn Putin into a global pariah.

“Breaking the nuclear taboo would impose, at a minimum, complete diplomatic and economic isolation on Russia“, said Sidharth Kaushal, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute in London, specializing in defense and security.

As the CIA celebrates its 75th anniversary this year, the intelligence community is keeping a watchful eye on the war in Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

CBS News visited the agency’s headquarters in Virginia to speak with Directed by William Burns. https://t.co/jThz48MuSo

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Tactical nuclear weapons: warheads for shorter ranges would not be prepared

Long-range nuclear weapons that Russia could use in direct conflict with the United States are battle-ready. But its stockpiles of shorter-range warheads – the so-called tactical weapons that Putin might be tempted to use in Ukraine – are not, analysts say.

“All those weapons are in storage,” said Pavel Podvig, another researcher specializing in nuclear weapons at the UN Center for Disarmament Studies in Geneva. . “You have to get them out of the bunker, load them onto trucks” and then marry them to missiles or other delivery systems, he said.

Tactical nuclear weapons are essentially nuclear weapons used in the field of battle with a “tactical” purpose and that are much less powerful than the large bombs that would be needed to destroy large cities such as Moscow, Washington or London.

These weapons can be dropped from aircraft , be fired on missiles from land, ships or submarines, or be detonated by ground forces.

Although Russia has specialized nuclear forces trained to fight on such an apocalyptic battlefield, it is not clear how its army of regular troops, mercenaries, conscripted reservists and local militias would manage.

Russia has not published a complete inventory of its tactical nuclear weapons and their capabilities. Putin could order a smaller one to be surreptitiously prepared for surprise use.

Climb as exit ramp

However, openly removing weapons from storage is also a tactic that Putin could use to increase pressure without using them. He would hope that US satellites would pick up the activity and perhaps hope that showing his nuclear teeth might scare Western powers into reducing their support for Ukraine.

“That is what the Russians would be betting, that each escalation provides the other side with both a threat and (also) an off-ramp to negotiate with Russia”, said Kaushal.

And added: “There is a kind of grammar in nuclear signaling and in risk policy, and a logic that goes beyond , you know, a madman who one day decides to carry out this kind of thing”.

Analysts also expect other escalations to occur first, such as the increase in Russian attacks in Ukraine with non-nuclear weapons.

“I don’t think produce a knock-on effect,” said Nikolai Sokov, who was involved in arms control negotiations while working for the Asun Ministry. Foreign Affairs of Russia and who now works at the Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation in Vienna.

What would be the objectives in the battlefield?

Analysts are also struggling to identify battlefield targets worth the huge price Putin would pay. If a single nuclear attack did not stop the Ukrainian advances, would it attack again and again?

Podvig pointed out that the war does not have “large concentrations of troops” as its objective.

Attack cities, hoping to shock Ukraine into surrender, it would be a terrible alternative. “The decision to kill tens and hundreds of thousands of people in cold blood is a difficult decision,” he said. “As it should be”.

Stop Western arms supplies to Ukraine

It is possible that Putin hopes that the threats alone will stop the supply of weapons from the West to Ukraine and buy time to train the 210,000 soldiers that it is mobilizing, triggering protests and an exodus of men of service age.

But if Ukraine continues to roll back the invasion and Putin finds himself unable to keep what he has taken, analysts fear a growing risk that he will decide his non-nuclear options are running out. .

“Putin is really eliminating many bridges behind him right now, with the mobilization, with the annexation of new territories”, said RAND’s Massicot.

“It suggests that he is totally determined to win this on his terms,” he added. “I am very concerned about where that ultimately leads us, to include, in the end, some sort of nuclear decision.”

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