Russia Will Change Nuclear Doctrine Due to West’s Role in Ukraine: Deputy Foreign Minister

An undated photo of a Russian RS-24 Yars mobile missile system at Alabino training ground in Russia. Sergei Bobylev/Russian Defence Ministry Press Office/TASS

A top Russian official said the Kremlin will change its nuclear weapons doctrine in response to the war in Ukraine and what Moscow describes as an escalation in the conflict.

Russia’s current nuclear doctrine, issued by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, states that Moscow may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or in response to a conventional attack that poses an existential threat to the Russian state.

In recent years, some Russian officials have publicly suggested that Putin should revise the doctrine in response to the war in Ukraine and what they describe as ongoing Western and NATO involvement in the conflict.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state-run media on Sept. 1 that the Kremlin has a “clear intent” to change its doctrine regarding when nuclear weapons should be used.

“As we have repeatedly said before, the work is in the advanced stage, and there is a clear intent to introduce a correction [to the nuclear doctrine], caused, among other things, by the examination and analysis of [the] development of recent conflicts, including, of course, everything connected to our Western adversaries’ escalation course in regards to the special military operation,” Ryabkov said, according to the state-run Tass news agency.

Putin said in June that the country’s nuclear doctrine was a “living instrument” that could change depending on world events. Based on Ryabkov’s comments, it’s unclear when the doctrine would be changed.

“The timeframe for its completion is a rather complicated issue, considering that we are talking about the most important aspect of our national security,” he said.

Longtime Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Sept. 1 that the United States and its allies are “going too far” and that Russia would do everything to protect its interests.

On the first day of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin said that any forces that attempted to block Moscow would suffer “consequences” that they ”have never faced” in their history. Since then, he has also made public statements about Russia’s nuclear arsenal and deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which shares a long border with Ukraine, as well as Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia—three NATO member states.

In March, Putin said Russia was ready for a nuclear war to break out “from a military-technical point of view.” However, he said that he saw no rush toward a nuclear confrontation and that Russia had never faced a need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Russia has more nuclear weapons than any other nation, including the United States.

Moscow has accused the West and NATO of using Ukraine to wage a proxy war against Russia with the intent of breaking it apart. The United States and its allies have denied such claims, saying they are helping Ukraine defend itself against a war of aggression; some top officials have signaled that Kyiv could eventually join NATO.

Last month, Ukraine breached Russia’s western border in an incursion by thousands of troops that Russia is still fighting to repel. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that the incursion in Kursk is legitimate.

“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Stoltenberg told the outlet. He said that NATO was not informed by Kyiv of the plans to target Kursk beforehand and that the West wasn’t playing a direct role in the assault.

Reuters contributed to this report.