Russia expert counters Putin suggestion that he will change Moscow’s nuclear doctrine
By Caitlin McFall
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday once again drew international attention when he warned that if even one missile enters Russian territory, “hundreds” of warheads will respond.
“I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal of a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles are in the air,” Putin said from a summit in Kyrgyzstan, Russian news outlet RIA reported. “It is impossible to stop them.”
“There will be nothing left of the enemy, because it is impossible to intercept a hundred missiles. This, of course, is a deterrent — a serious deterrent,” he added.
Putin gained notoriety when it appeared that he might alter Russia’s nuclear deterrence doctrine by implementing a first-strike strategy, which he called a “disarming strike”; he claimed that this strategy was inspired by the current U.S. deterrence policy.
Russia already has this strategy embedded in its nuclear doctrine.
Rebekah Koffler, a Russia expert and former Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence officer, said Washington does have a policy that permits it to use a nuclear weapon, not only in retaliation to a nuclear attack but also in response to non-nuclear threats. Moscow also has a similar policy, she added.
She added that Putin’s remarks indicated that “Russia may use nuclear weapons in Ukraine if the US/NATO continue to provide weapons to Ukraine — especially those that Ukraine can use to strike deep into Russia proper.” “What this was, from the intelligence standpoint, is’strategic messaging,'” she said.
Putin’s remarks come just days after bases hundreds of miles inside Russia’s borders were hit by three separate drone attacks, an attack that Moscow squarely attributed to Ukraine.
According to current Russian doctrine, Russia is capable of retaliating with nuclear strikes because Engels Airbase is home to nuclear-capable bombers that are valued as strategic assets and deserving of nuclear defense, Koffler said.
Kyiv has not accepted responsibility for the strikes, but the attacks outside of Ukraine’s borders, where a brutal war has raged for more than nine months, put top defense officials on the alert this week.
“It is a terrible war in Ukraine. It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday in an interview.
“There is no doubt that a full-fledged war is a possibility,” he added, noting that NATO was doing everything possible to prevent this.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Friday accused Putin of engaging in “deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling” and said that the U.S. “stands ready to negotiate new arms control agreements with partners operating in good faith.”
Koffler warned that the rhetoric alone from the top nuclear powers could escalate the war in Ukraine.
“There’s no question that Russia and the U.S. are climbing an escalatory ladder in Ukraine, which may end up in Putin’s use of nuclear weapons,” she told Fox News Digital. “Neither side wants to end up in a direct conflict, but they are climbing this ladder unintentionally due to the misunderstanding of each other’s posture.”
“Both sides are betting that the other one will blink first,” she added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
