Vladimir Putin’s generals ‘discussed nuclear strike’

Russian military officials discussed the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine after a series of battlefield setbacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via a video link in Sochi. Picture: AFP.

Russian military officials are believed to have discussed the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine after a series of battlefield setbacks for President Putin’s army.

The discussions have raised concerns in western capitals, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed American officials. Although Putin did not participate, the conversations raised fears within President Biden’s administration that Putin was serious in his nuclear threats.

Putin and other Kremlin officials have said several times that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, including to prevent Kyiv from recapturing Russian-occupied territory in the south and east of the country. “This is not a bluff,” Putin said in September.

John Kirby, a White House spokesman, said: “We’ve been clear from the outset that Russia’s comments about the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning, and we take them seriously.”

Although the White House declined to comment on the reported meeting of military chiefs in Moscow, Kirby said that the US had seen no indications that Russia was making plans to use a nuclear weapon in the near future.

Russia is thought to have up to 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, which are designed to destroy an enemy’s forces on the battlefield. Although tactical weapons have lower yields than strategic warheads, which can destroy cities, they can cause significant radioactive fallout. The use of tactical warhead would break the “nuclear taboo” that has existed since the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.

Russian rhetoric has cooled, however. Putin appeared last week to backtrack on his threats, telling a forum in Moscow that there were no plans to use nuclear weapons. “We see no need for that,” he said. “There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.” Yesterday the Russian foreign ministry reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to the “inadmissibility of a nuclear war”.

Putin’s apparent wish to calm fears about a nuclear conflict are rooted in his attempts to portray Russia as a leading power in an ideological war with the West, according to Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst.

“In this struggle, it is very uncomfortable for him to feel like a crazy monster rattling nuclear weapons,” she wrote on Telegram. “But this has nothing to do with his real military intentions or plans for Ukraine.

“Putin hopes that the worst-case scenario [inevitable defeat in Ukraine] will not come to pass. But if it does, then he will use nuclear weapons because he will have no other way to avoid losing.”

Yesterday Putin told his new co-ordination council, established last week to oversee the Kremlin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, that Russian weaponry should be “constantly and continuously” improved. Moscow’s efforts to maintain its war machine have been complicated, however, by western sanctions. The US accused North Korea yesterday (Wednesday) of covertly shipping a “significant” number of artillery shells to Russia to help Moscow replenish its depleted stocks.

Despite being reported to have boasted that the Russian army would capture Kyiv within days, Putin has watched his forces driven out of northern Ukraine and forced into humiliating retreats in the east and south.

There was another setback this week when suspected Ukrainian saboteurs blew up three Ka-52 attack helicopters on a Russian airfield in Pskov, 800km (500 miles) from the border. Two of the helicopters were said to have been destroyed, and the third badly damaged.

The Times