Russian President Vladimir Putin’s open threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO allies supporting Ukraine appears to European officials to be a watershed in high-stakes brinkmanship that could foreshadow a new level of carnage in Ukraine.
The threat is, first, a sign of “desperation and frustration by Putin,” a European official whose country emerged from behind the Iron Curtain after the fall of the Soviet Union told the Washington Examiner. “And secondly, as psychological pressure to the West before his major escalation in Ukraine (most likely in the coming days).”
Putin appeared on camera with senior Russian defense officials to order that they “introduce a special combat duty regime in the Russian army’s deference forces,” according to state media. That broadcast aired after days of heavy fighting around Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital city, which has proven resilient in the face of waves of Russian attacks since the first night of the invasion, and the announcement Saturday that the United States and other Western allies would increase military assistance for Ukraine while imposing sanctions on Russia’s central bank.
“Just to mention the possibility of using nuclear weapons is such an [act of] gigantic irresponsibility that it says a lot about the personality of who is doing that,” European Union High Representative Josep Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, told reporters Sunday. “Nevertheless, we will continue supporting Ukraine.”
EU officials have agreed to finance the arming of Ukraine to resist the Russian invasion, which the bloc has never done for a country that is not part of the EU.
“We are facing the pest of the war, like in the biblical times,” Borrell said Sunday. “We are going to supply arms and even fighter jets. We are not talking just about ammunition; we are providing the most important arms to go to war.”
The European-made jets would be “flying in [Ukrainian] skies within the hour,” EU Parliament senior adviser Alexandre Krausz tweeted Sunday afternoon EST after Borrell’s announcement.
Flying in #Ukraine skies within the hour. https://t.co/8NKJiP8upG
— Alexandre Krauss (@AlexandreKrausz) February 27, 2022
Western officials and analysts are watching closely to see what steps are taken to implement Putin’s order, because not every nuclear-related action is a severe threat. Yet Russian military strategists in recent years have opened the door to a theory known as “escalate to deescalate,” according to Western officials who fear that Russia might believe it could use a so-called “low-yield” nuclear weapon to win a rapid victory over a European ally without triggering a doomsday response from the United States.
“We’re prepared for everything here,” Czech Deputy Defense Minister Tomas Kopecny told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview Sunday. “So, I don’t think it’s just a bargaining chip, and at the same time, we’re just not taking our forces down because of this threat.”
Pentagon strategists have been working for years to develop countermeasures to any Russian “nuclear Blitzkrieg,” a Latvian official termed it in a 2020 interview with the Washington Examiner.
“We don’t want someone else to miscalculate that because they are going to use a low-yield weapon, that somehow we would confront [a choice between] ’surrender or suicide,’” then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told Congress in 2018.
Putin’s order Sunday isn’t the only example of nuclear saber-rattling in this crisis. He made an explicit reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal in the speech that presaged the launch of the invasion, which included a warning that “any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country” during the war in Ukraine. On Sunday, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, a Putin client who has allowed Russia to engage in the attack on Kyiv from his country and has a history of blustery or bellicose rhetoric, claimed the new Western sanctions are “worse than war” and could provoke a retaliation.
“Russia is being pushed toward a third world war,” Lukashenko said in remarks amplified by Russian state media. “We should be very reserved and steer clear of it. Because nuclear war is the end of everything.”
Ukrainian officials are interpreting those threats in light of Russia’s parallel offer to hold a meeting to discuss a potential off-ramp from the violence.
“We see this announcement, this order, as an attempt to raise the stakes and to put additional pressure on the Ukrainian delegation,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters.”But we will not give in to this pressure.”
Kuleba portrayed the nuclear threat as Putin’s attempt to fortify a diplomatic position eroded by the effectiveness of the Ukrainian defense.
“Just a couple of days ago when the war started, Russia was not interested in any talks at all. After they suffered losses … and the Blitzkrieg failed, Russia started speaking with the language of ultimatums,” Kuleba added, per Reuters. ”As Russia continued to suffer, as the Russian army experienced one defeat after another, the demands, the preconditions, the ultimatums by Russia were put aside, and now they conveyed a message to us that they just want to talk.”
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That assessment might be too optimistic, according to another senior European official. “I would like to say [Putin’s] only harassing, he’s only threatening for negotiations, but I’m not convinced of that,” Kopecny told the Washington Examiner. “I think that everything is on the table right now. It’s really scary. But at the same time, it’s scary, but fear is not really the emotion we feel here. It’s more of a resolve.”
