Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to rehearse the use of so-called tactical nuclear weapons in combat, calling the exercises a response to “threats” from French President Emmanuel Macron.
The drills are the Russian president’s latest salvo in a dispute with the West over his invasion of Ukraine, during which Putin has repeatedly made veiled threats to use nuclear weapons.
Russia said the drills, which involve non-strategic nuclear weapons that could be used on the battlefield, were in response to “provocative statements” by Western officials, including Macron.
The French president reiterated last week that he was leaving open the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine as he warned of the threat Russia’s invasion posed to Europe.
The Kremlin also showed its anger at the U.S. Senate, which passed a long-delayed $61 billion aid package for Kiev last month, as well as the United Kingdom, whose top diplomat Lord David Cameron said last week that Ukraine Weapons supplied by Great Britain could be used against targets inside Russia.
“They talked about being ready and even intending to send armed operations into Ukraine, which essentially pits NATO soldiers against the Russian military,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters on Monday.
“This is a whole new level of escalating tensions. It is unprecedented, it requires special attention and special measures,” Peskov said.
The Kremlin has sought to deter Western powers from intervening more directly in the grueling two-year war in Ukraine, where Russian forces have gained the upper hand over Kiev’s outnumbered army.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former deputy president to Putin, said Russia “had to react” if Western countries sent troops to Ukraine, which would lead to a “global catastrophe.”
The exercises mark a return to nuclear saber rattling for Putin ahead of his inauguration for a fifth term as president on Tuesday, when he will extend his quarter-century rule until at least 2030. It came as Macron hosted China’s Xi Jinping in Paris. European leaders pushed to use his influence over Putin to encourage restraint on nuclear issues.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the exercises would test whether units were fully prepared to use non-strategic nuclear weapons such as short-range missiles or torpedoes “to respond and unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state.”
Missile and aviation forces of Russia’s Southern Military District and naval units would conduct the drills “soon,” the ministry said, without providing further details.
Although Russia regularly conducts nuclear exercises, it is highly unusual to conduct them as an explicit response to the West, said William Alberque, former director of NATO’s Center for Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation.
“My impression is that this is a clear attempt to use nuclear coercion against Macron himself for his recent statements about Ukraine and Russia.” “As far as nuclear signaling is concerned, we are certainly entering uncharted territory,” Alberque said.
The Kremlin has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with Macron’s aggressive stance since it first raised the prospect of sending Western troops to Ukraine in February, with Moscow claiming such a move would make direct conflict between Russia and NATO inevitable.
Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of Russian state television’s main news program, hosted a segment late last month entitled “We will use it!” in which he assured viewers that Moscow would be ready to fire nuclear weapons in such a scenario.
“If NATO countries send their forces to Ukraine to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, then [ . . . ] We send everything everywhere!” Kiselyov said, standing in front of a row of nuclear-capable missile launches.
The exercises test Russia’s non-strategic nuclear arsenal. Although they carry a smaller payload than intercontinental nuclear weapons aimed at the United States, the warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.
According to leaked training documents obtained by the Financial Times, Russia’s threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons is lower than the Kremlin has ever publicly admitted.
These include an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an impending enemy attack with conventional weapons.
Ukraine and its Western allies have been worried about a possible Russian nuclear attack since Putin hinted at it when announcing the invasion in 2022 and then vowed to “use all means at our disposal” to further his conquests in Ukraine later that year To defend.
The United States, Britain and France, NATO’s three nuclear powers, warned Russia that they could respond to a nuclear attack in Ukraine with conventional weapons, while Xi warned Putin against using nuclear weapons, according to Western and Chinese officials.