Putin warns over nuclear threat to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that a powerful new strategic missile had undergone a successful test, but he did not completely rule out the possibility that Russia may soon conduct nuclear-explosive weapons tests for the first time in more than three decades.
Putin announced that Moscow’s Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable weapon with a potential range of many thousands of miles, had undergone a successful test.
Additionally, he revealed that work on Russia’s Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile system—another crucial component of its new generation of nuclear weapons—had nearly been finished at an annual gathering of analysts and journalists.
Since beginning his invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin has repeatedly emphasized Russia’s nuclear power. He claimed that no one in their right mind would use nuclear weapons against Russia.
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According to him, if such an attack were to be discovered, “so many of our missiles – hundreds, hundreds – would appear in the air that not a single enemy would have a chance of survival.”
Putin did not completely rule out the possibility that Russia could resume such testing, despite the fact that it has not conducted a nuclear explosion test since 1990, the year before the fall of the Soviet Union.
He pointed out that while Russia had signed and ratified the nuclear test ban treaty, the United States had not. The Russian parliament, the Duma, could theoretically revoke its ratification, he said.
A restart of nuclear testing by Russia, the United States, or both, according to military analysts, would be profoundly destabilizing at a time when tensions between the two countries are at their highest point in 60 years.
Putin halted Russia’s participation in the New START treaty, which caps the number of nuclear weapons that each party can use, in February.
As Putin warns over nuclear threat to Russia, however, he insisted that there was no need for Russia to change its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, which states that the country may use them in response to a nuclear attack against it or in the event of a threat to the state’s existence.
Responding to a question from Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov, who has advocated lowering the threshold for nuclear use, Putin said: “I simply don’t see the need for this.”
He added: “There is no situation today in which, say, something would threaten Russian statehood and the existence of the Russian state. No. I think no person of sound mind and clear memory would think of using nuclear weapons against Russia.”
Karaganov has raised eyebrows among both Russian and Western strategic analysts by arguing that it is time for Russia to lower its threshold for nuclear use in order to “contain, frighten and sober up our opponents”.
In a recent article, he stated that Russia should “shake up” its enemies by threatening nuclear attacks on European countries and US bases in Europe.
