Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that the threat of nuclear war is “increasing,” following months of steadily escalating rhetoric between Moscow and Washington.
“This risk [of nuclear conflict] is increasing,” Putin said at a Dec. 7 meeting in Moscow of Russia’s Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.
“Why deny it?” the Russian president added.
Putin made the remarks in response to Svetlana Makovetskaya, director of Russia’s GRANI Center of Civil Analysis and Independent Research. According to Russia’s TASS news agency, Makovetskaya asked Putin to address Russian fears by stating unequivocally that Moscow wouldn’t—under any circumstances—be the first to use nuclear weapons.
“If it’s not the first to use [them] under any circumstances, then it won’t be the second to use [them] as well, because a nuclear strike on our territory greatly limits the chances of using [them],” TASS cited Putin as saying.
Moscow, he went on to assert, regards nuclear weapons as a “means of defense” to be used in a retaliatory counterstrike.
Russia’s nuclear strategy, Putin added, is based on “the so-called retaliatory counterstrike, meaning that when a strike is inflicted on us, we inflict one in response.”
Escalating Rhetoric
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, there has been steadily escalating nuclear rhetoric between Moscow and Washington, a key supporter of Ukraine.Tit-for-tat nuclear threats appeared to intensify in the run-up to Russia’s formal incorporation of four regions of Ukraine in late September.
On Sept. 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the U.N. General Assembly in New York that if the four regions opted to join Russia, they'd receive the “full protection” of the Russian state.
Interpreting the comment as a threat to use nuclear weapons, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned that such a step would draw a “decisive” response from the United States.
“If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences,” Sullivan said in televised comments.
Putin, for his part, warned that Moscow would use “all available means” to protect Russian territory from perceived threats.
Following weeks of headlines in the Western press, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned early last month that the world’s five declared nuclear powers stood “on the brink of a direct armed conflict.”
Along with the United States and Russia, the five declared nuclear powers—which are also the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—include the UK, France, and China.
The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, urged Western powers to refrain from “encouraging provocations with weapons of mass destruction, which can lead to catastrophic consequences.”
On Nov. 6, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sullivan had held a series of undisclosed talks in recent months with his Russian counterparts. According to the report, the unpublicized talks were held with the aim of reducing the risk of nuclear conflict amid steadily escalating rhetoric by both sides.
The report cited unnamed U.S. officials as saying that Sullivan had spoken—several times—with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
When asked about the report’s contents, spokespeople for both the White House and the Kremlin declined to comment.
Moscow, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that its statements were being taken out of context and that its nuclear doctrine clearly lays out the circumstances under which it might deploy nuclear weapons.
Media Distortions
On Dec. 5, Lavrov repeated claims that Moscow’s statements about the use of nuclear weapons were being “maliciously distorted” by the Western media.“In the face of Western attempts to deter Russia, the push by the United States and NATO ... toward a military confrontation with us is a major risk,” Lavrov told participants at a conference in Moscow devoted to nuclear nonproliferation.
“We are forced to regularly send out warning signals in this regard,” the foreign minister said in remarks published on the ministry’s website.
“But instead of taking them seriously, they are maliciously distorted in the West, and we are accused of using ‘threatening rhetoric.’”
Lavrov went on to stress Moscow’s commitment to “the understandings enshrined in the joint documents of the five nuclear powers.”
“In accordance with the declaration of the five powers on the inadmissibility of nuclear war,” he asserted, “any armed conflict between countries possessing nuclear weapons must be prevented.”
