With his announcement that the Russian nuclear forces would be put on increased alert, President Vladimir Putin triggered a further escalation level. According to experts, this could primarily be a well-calculated bluff – albeit a dangerous one.
What exactly did Putin say?
“I am instructing the defense minister and the chief of staff to put the Russian army’s deterrent forces on special combat readiness,” Putin said live on television on Sunday. These “deterrent forces” are a set of entities designed to deter other countries from attacking Russia. In addition to a massive arsenal of ballistic missiles, they also include nuclear weapons.
What does the announcement mean for the Russian armed forces?
According to experts, it is more of a symbolic act, a warning to the West: At least some of the Russian nuclear weapons are always ready for use anyway – just like with NATO. “They can be detonated within ten minutes,” says Marc Finaud from the Center for Security Policy in Geneva. “Either the warheads are already attached to missiles or they are nuclear bombs that are already on board” from fighter jets or submarines.
According to an article by experts Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda published late last week in the respected Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Russia currently has nearly 1,600 operational nuclear warheads. “Given that Russia’s strategic forces are always on high alert, the real question is whether Russia has sent out more submarines or armed fighter jets,” Kristensen wrote on Twitter.
Video: Russia correspondent Paul Krisai and US correspondent Thomas Langpaul discuss how seriously President Putin’s threats should be taken
To what extent does the situation in the Ukraine war play a role?
All experts unanimously emphasize that Putin’s nuclear weapons threat shows the Kremlin chief’s frustration at the fighting in Ukraine. The Russian troops did not advance nearly as successfully as Moscow had planned.
“There is Russian frustration with the Ukrainian resistance,” says David Khalfa of the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris. The Kremlin is threatened with a kind of “long guerrilla war” in which many Russian soldiers will probably die. “The fact that even days later they still haven’t gained control of the airspace is revealing,” said Eliot A. Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, referring to the Russian army. “One begins to see weakness in battle.”
For her part, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) said on ZDF that, in Germany’s opinion, Putin’s announcement “also has something to do with the fact that in his madness as a great power, the rapid march through Ukraine was stopped by courageous, committed intervention and defense of Ukraine “.
What could be Putin’s goal?
According to the experts, with his threat Putin probably wants to break up the currently unusually high level of solidarity and unity in the West, which is massively supporting Ukraine. The Kremlin boss is “a kind of player, someone who takes risks,” says Cohen. “He’s trying to test us psychologically.” That’s how Khalfa sees it: “The psychological aspect is crucial.” Among other things, people should be unsettled: “Everyone is now gathering behind the Ukrainian flag. And he wants to drive a wedge between the governments and public opinion in the West.”
What is the risk of using nuclear weapons?
All experts emphasize that Putin’s announcement is more of a psychological maneuver. At the same time, however, everyone agrees that a reliable forecast is simply not possible. “Everyone who met him says he’s isolated, trapped in a paranoid logic,” says Khalfa. “That’s worrying, it’s actually impossible to really read his strategy.”
Talks with the Russian government are currently hardly possible, Lambrecht also admitted in the ARD: It is “difficult to keep a channel open to someone who lies, cheats, who is completely unpredictable”. The escalation in the open conflict with Russia is progressing “very quickly,” she warned. “We see that the words, the very martial announcements, are followed by deeds.”
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Source: Nachrichten
