Will putin use nuclear weapons

LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The West says Russia has made NUCLEAR WARNINGS? The recent surge in concern over a possible nuclear escalation come after two Putin speeches last month in which he clearly indicated that he would, if needed, use nuclear weapons to defend Russia. The "This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them," Putin said. At a Kremlin ceremony to formally annex around 18% of Ukrainian territory on Sept. 30, He again repeated Kremlin policy that it would defend Russian land "with all the powers and means at our disposal". Shortly after the invasion, Putin, ANNEXED TERRITORY? Since the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear bomb in 1949, Moscow has promised to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory, but the difference over Ukraine is that it has annexed more than a fifth of its neighbour. The Kremlin has said that any attack on those territories Russia's DIRTY BOMB? Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu this month has repeatedly raised concerns that Ukraine could use a Shoigu spoked with counterparts in the United States, Britain, France, Turkey, India and China. Both Ukraine and the United States have rejected Shoigu's claim as false. Instead, the West and Ukraine say, Shoigu's remarks indicate Russia is preparing to escalate. The West, Ukraine and Russia have not supplied evidence for their claims. "Our information that provocations with the use of a nuclear...

However you try to spin it, the drone strikes that struck Moscow’s wealthiest neighbourhoods on Tuesday night represented a grim turning point in Putin’s flagging campaign against Ukraine. The surprise attacks — which killed eight people, and for which Kyiv has denied all responsibility — were the first against Russian civilians since the war began. They were also the most significant incursion into Russian territory since the Second World War. Putin was quick to brand the strikes a “terrorist” act, while a rattled Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenaries, gave war chiefs a dressing-down for their inability to prevent three of eight drones from evading Russian air defences. Yet while this all provided a morale boost for the Ukrainian war effort, the question of retaliation hangs in the air. Fifteen months into the war, Putin’s bombs have not broken Ukraine. An influx of 300,000 new soldiers over the winter has done little to improve the fighting of Russian units, and the reported deployment of Many Western experts say they take the threat of a Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine seriously, but make the mistake of asserting that the And yet, there is strong evidence that Putin has resolved to use a tactical nuclear weapon in his war in Ukraine. In recent Moreover, while Nato has made it clear that it For much of the last 80 years, Russia’s security has rested on two pillars whose relative strength has waxed and waned — its conventional ground forces and its nuclear w...

Fierce fighting continues across south and eastern At the start of the war on 24 February, Mr Putin and his military officials were said to have been planning for an offensive that they believed would last only a matter of weeks. Recommended • Ukraine-Russia news - live: Kyiv demands more jets as Putin ‘throwing troops into meat grinder’ • Why are Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks important to Ukraine? • What is Russia’s ‘Satan II’ hypersonic intercontinental nuclear missile? • Why did Russia invade Ukraine? But is it really likely that What has Vladimir Putin said regarding nuclear weapons? During a meeting on Sunday 27 February 2022, Russian television footage showed Mr Putin meeting with his defence minister and the chief of the general staff and instructing them to put the nuclear weapons on a “special regime of combat duty”. Outlining what this meant, Patricia Lewis, director of the international security programme at the think-tank Chatham House, said: “What we think has happened is that under peacetime, Russia has checks and balances in place so that they can’t launch nuclear weapons. “So in order to be able to launch nuclear weapons, President Putin has to change the status from peacetime to combat, hence the phrase he’s ‘put his forces on special mode of combat duty’. I think we would probably call it combat readiness but it’s hard because of different languages and different meanings. “What he seems to have done is created the legal platform to be able to launch if he w...

I f Vladimir Putin were to decide to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, would we know ahead of launch? If so, how exactly would we know? Not since In these circumstances, feeling on edge is only natural. But in reporting on nuclear threats over the years, I have learned the pitfalls of assigning undue weight to rhetorical shiny objects. In 2017, for example, when Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un were calling each other “Little Rocket Man” and a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and warning of all manner of nuclear apocalypse, In a similar spirit, I asked several experts to share the indicators they’re watching most closely to determine whether Russian nuclear use in Ukraine is imminent—and to help us all separate the signal from the noise. “I do believe that we are at least several steps away from” Russian nuclear use in Ukraine, Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces, told me. Below is a breakdown of what those remaining steps could look like. A shift to more explicit, specific nuclear threats by Putin and other Russian officials Despite Putin Podvig is looking out for a shift away from that doctrine, which could involve Russian leaders more explicitly threatening to use nuclear weapons to halt Ukrainian advances on the battlefield. Matthew Kroenig, a nuclear strategist and my colleague at the Atlantic Council, served up a scenario: Imagine that Putin, seeing the lands he recently annexed about to slip from his grasp, declares, “‘I warned the world that these four regio...

It was meant to be a swift so-called special military operation — Russian troops were to roll into Kyiv and Ukraine's government were to capitulate. But the invasion didn't quite go to plan. Instead, Russian forces were faced with several Now, as Russia's fronts are collapsing and Ukrainian forces So the question is: what is president Vladimir Putin going to do? Nuclear: Will he or won't he? In the televised address announcing partial mobilisation, Vladimir Putin warned the West that Russia "also has various means of destruction". ( News Video) As Ukraine made breakthroughs on the battlefield, Mr Putin raised the stakes of the war by In a televised address, he said Russia would use all tools at its disposal to defend its "territorial integrity". "This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them," he said. Many experts have tended to agree it's unlikely Mr Putin will resort to using nuclear weapons. But all agree the threat cannot be ruled out and must be taken seriously. Loading... Jessica Genauer, international relations lecturer at Flinders University, said the chance of nuclear weapons being used has "increased significantly in recent weeks" as more Russians voice their objections to how the war is being fought. "[Putin] is now facing a precarious domestic situation, with no expectation of upcoming military successes for Russia on the battlefield," Dr Genauer said. "When we take ...