As Moscow’s nuclear red lines have been crossed repeatedly in its war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is now forced to explore new rhetoric to threaten the West, Russian officials and academics have said.
The Washington Post, citing comments from unnamed Russian apparatchiks and scholars with alleged ties to the Kremlin, said “Putin is casting around for a more nuanced and limited response to the West allowing Ukraine to use longer range missiles to strike Russia.”
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A Russian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post that “there has been an overflow of nuclear threats” and as a result, an “immunity to such statements, and they don’t frighten anyone.”
The publication voiced the opinion that the Kremlin had never seriously considered nuclear escalation in the first place.
A Russian academic allegedly close to senior Russian diplomats told the publication that nuclear escalation remains “the least possible” option and “not very effective” due to the catastrophic consequences of such action which had led to dissatisfaction among Moscow’s allies, including those in the Global South.
Tatiana Stanovaya, the founder of the French-based political consultancy R-Politik, told the Washington Post that nuclear escalation is considered the “worst option for everyone,” including Putin himself, adding that he would only consider that option if he “feels there is a threat to the existence of Russia in its current form.”
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That said, Russian analysts and officials told the Washington Post that Moscow is ostensibly content with Washington’s apparent hesitation to allow Kyiv’s deep strikes inside Russia using Western weapons, and the Kremlin expects a “very limited” change of existing strike policy even if the West is to allow it.
Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of War Studies at Kings College, London, said Moscow could theoretically respond by sabotage operations against military targets or other infrastructure in the West, in places where plausible deniability is possible.
Freedman added that aiding proxy groups battling Western interests worldwide, such as the Houthi militia in Yemen, could be an option for Moscow.
Freedman said Putin’s nuclear threats were deliberately vague by design, which allowed free interpretation.
“It sounds menacing, but he never is actually very specific about what he’s going to do. He allows us to make our own interpretations, and people interpret the worst.”
Sergei Markov, a hawkish Kremlin-connected political analyst, acknowledged the growing realization among the Russian military regarding the ineffectiveness of current nuclear threats before adding that the Kremlin would be forced to react eventually.
Markov suggested that the Kremlin could close the British Embassy in Moscow or even strike NATO airbases in Poland and Romania reportedly hosting Ukrainian F-16 fighters as a show of force, the latter notion R-Politik’s Stanovaya dismissed as unlikely.
However, both Markov and Stanovaya noted Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s election campaign, which utilized potential nuclear escalation with the Kremlin as a campaign issue. Markov said Putin could theoretically escalate the threats ahead of the November US elections.
“If Putin escalates, then the US will fear nuclear war and Trump will win,” Markov said.
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