In the face of Ukrainian resistance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the ongoing war. US President Joe Biden warned Thursday of the risk of an “apocalypse” for the first time since the Cold War.
However, it is not clear at this time to what extent this nuclear threat could become a reality.
· What nuclear weapons does Russia have?
Russian nuclear power is important but assessing it accurately is difficult because little information is leaking out on this topic. According to data from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, from February 2022, Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads, but not all of them are deployed and operational.
This figure also includes both tactical nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear weapons. “Tactical nuclear weapons have a range of 500 kilometers. Strategic nuclear weapons” can do Moscow-Washington, explains Ulysse Gosset, foreign policy columnist for our antenna.
“In fact, there are so-called tactical weapons that are defined as weaker than strategic weapons, but they are still very powerful nuclear weapons,” Lova Rinel, associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research, recalls on BFMTV.
“We are talking about a serious arsenal, which kills, we are more or less equivalent to Hiroshima, so we are really dealing with something dangerous that endangers the populations”, the researcher stresses.
· In what cases can Putin use nuclear weapons?
Russian doctrine states that Vladimir Putin can use nuclear weapons if Russia is attacked and if this attack endangers the country’s existence. If it is Ukraine that is under attack at the moment, the Russian president has repeatedly reminded that the annexed regions in Ukraine are now Russian for him, and that any attack on these soils will be considered an attack on Russia.
The subtlety of this framework is that it is Vladimir Putin who defines what corresponds to “endangering the existence of the country”. The concept is broad and a bit vague, which means that the cases that can fit into it are potentially numerous.
Pyotr Tolstoy, vice president of the Duma, however assured on BFMTV this week that he was “sure and sure that we are not going to use nuclear weapons. We have a doctrine, so the law is very clear about it and we can use it only if there is an existential threat to the entire Russian territory.
· Who decides to use nuclear force?
According to Russian law, it is Vladimir Putin who decides for himself. But Russia also inherited the Soviet system of collective decision-making, where the agreement of the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces was necessary. Is it still like that today? The answer is vague, we don’t know exactly if these two soldiers have real blocking power on the nuclear issue, explains Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research.
However, he points out that if these two military men were really a liability for the Russian president, he would just have to replace them with people who approved of his plans.
Michel Yakovleff, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe (NATO), stresses on BFMTV that the military responsible for carrying out the nuclear launch could for their part oppose such a decision, they are “hundreds of people, hundreds of people, some of whom are critical of the system.
According to him, what holds Putin back “is the fear of disobedience, this is what I call the last test of loyalty. He fears that by giving this extreme order where everyone will be paralyzed, saying ‘no, but here we are'” . changing the world and I too have a family and I would like us to avoid the third extinction’ – some say ‘oh no, I’m stopping'”, declares Michel Yakovleff.
Will Putin push the button?
Apart from the threats in the words of the Russian president, today there are no signs of preparation, no signs of an imminent attack. “We have no reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, nor do we have any indication that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons imminently,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on Friday, following alarming remarks. by Joe Biden. .
“Several US officials have not noted any signs of readiness to use nuclear weapons, despite Putin’s somewhat irresponsible attempts at intimidation recently,” David Petraeus, a former CIA chief, also said.
Experts also say that if Russia were planning a nuclear attack, it would be seen and known. Nuclear storage sites scattered throughout the country are constantly monitored by satellites, intelligence services and foreign military surveillance. If there was an imminent threat of attack, the weapons would have to come out of storage, the Russian ground forces would have to prepare, they would have to be provided with protective equipment, and it would not go unnoticed.
· Are you trying to scare people?
For historian Anne de Tinguy, a researcher at Sciences Po-CERI, Vladimir Putin would have no interest in carrying out his nuclear threat, but “in fact it’s scary, look at France, around us in Western countries, the first question what do we have today”. is: ‘Is he going to use nuclear weapons?'”
“It is obvious that we must take the threats related to nuclear energy very seriously, that is clear and I think that everyone takes them seriously,” continues the historian, “but at the same time we must be right, since the Russians do not really they have an interest in using a nuclear weapon even tactically. Mr. Putin and those around him know very well the retaliation they will face if they use it.”
Vera Ageeva, a political scientist specializing in Russia, is less confident in this situation because “although it is not logical for us to make nuclear threats and a nuclear attack, for him it is.” The more the Russian president loses ground in Ukraine, the weaker he becomes and the more dangerous he becomes.
Vladimir Putin “thinks that if he does it, it shows that it is he who handles the situation, that he is capable of defining the rules, so in my opinion he should not be excluded, the pressure on him is also great enough, for which is a real danger.
Source: BFM TV
