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Sightings of Russian military equipment associated with nuclear weapons have observers wondering if Moscow is preparing to use them in Ukraine.
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Putin has also upped his nuclear rhetoric recently, adding to concern.
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An expert tells Popular Mechanics he believes the U.S. government and others would detect if Russian forces were preparing for nuclear action.
Could Russian President Vladimir Putin be preparing to use nuclear weapons? That’s the latest rumor from the war in Ukraine, where the Russian army is on the run. Putin’s nuclear warnings, coupled with unusual sightings of nuclear weapons equipment in Russia, could be signs he’s preparing to use them. But U.S. intelligence would likely detect the buildup before a nuclear attack, allowing time to warn Ukraine and prepare if their use spirals out of control.
Things aren’t going great right now for Russia’s war in Ukraine. More than two hundred days after the start of the invasion, a Ukrainian counteroffensive is making gains east of Kharkiv, with Lyman the latest city to be liberated from Russian forces. In Kherson in the south, the offensive is pinning Russian ground troops against the Dnipro River, where destroyed bridges are blocking their escape. Russia’s partial mobilization is sending poorly trained and equipped civilians to the front, antagonizing families left behind, and its economy is staggering under the weight of even more sanctions imposed.
Putin needs an end to the war he thought would last just three days, and he needs it fast.
Over the past several months, Putin has made several references to nuclear weapons, with the latest being the most explicit so far. Putin accused the United States and NATO of “nuclear blackmail” and accused Western leaders of making statements about “using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia.”
Putin also stated: “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.” The reference to “all means” is interpreted as the use of all available weapons, including nuclear ones.
“It’s not a bluff,” the Russian president warned.
On September 30, Russia announced it had annexed four regions of Ukraine: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, making them officially part of Russia. Russian forces are currently retreating in at least two of those regions, but a logical extension of Putin’s warning is that Russia is intent on keeping the conquered regions, and may use nuclear weapons to defend them.
In the meantime, observers have noticed some indications of nuclear-related activity inside Russia. On October 3, the The Telegraph reported a train was spotted with armored vehicles belonging to the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for the physical security of Russia’s nuclear weapons. The vehicles are typically assigned to units protecting nuclear weapons in the field.
Konrad Muzyka, an analyst in Europe who publishes the Ukraine Conflict Monitor newsletter, believes there was a purpose behind releasing the video, telling CBS News: “This video of a train is a very good example of Russian strategy of trying to increase the pressure on the West and signal its—maybe not necessarily readiness—but willingness to escalate the situation.”
Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, is not convinced the train sighting is directly related to the deployment of nuclear weapons, but says that sightings of specialized trains used by the Russian military to transport nukes could make him think otherwise.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports, seven Russian strategic bombers were spotted at Olenya air base in northern Russia. The four Tu-160 “Blackjack” and three Tu-95 “Bear” bombers arrived sometime in late September, traveling from Engels Air Base in western Russia. The seven bombers are all capable of launching nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. One expert in Russian nuclear forces, Pavel Podvig, however warned on Twitter that the deployment “doesn’t tell you much” about Russian intentions. Olenya is also farther from Ukraine than Engles, so the deployment doesn’t seem like a precursor to using the bombers to strike targets in Ukraine.
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, an expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear policy, thinks Putin could use nuclear weapons. Perry, who has met Putin several times, told The Atlantic, “Putin is rational at the moment, not deranged, and would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve victory and thereby ensure the survival of his regime.” Perry believes that the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon against a military target would have little downside for Russia, and that the inevitable international uproar “might blow over in a week or two.”
The U.S. and its allies have taken note of Putin’s nuclear rhetoric and are stepping up monitoring of Russian military movements in an attempt to catch any signs of imminent weapons use. “If Putin were to use a nuclear weapon, he would very likely alert Russia’s entire nuclear force. After all, Putin can’t be sure that, if Russia goes first, there won’t be a U.S. response. So Russia has to be ready for an all-out nuclear war, even if Putin only intends to make a demonstration strike,” Lewis tells Popular Mechanics.
“Many of Russia’s nuclear forces are already on alert,” Lewis explains, “but Russia would likely take additional measures like sending more submarines to sea and sending more mobile missiles into the field. If the U.S. saw those kinds of actions, it would respond by increasing its alert levels.”
So far, U.S. forces have not increased their alert status. Washington has warned Moscow that the use of nukes have “catastrophic” consequences, though it is being intentionally vague as to what those consequences might be. Putin for his part has ominously argued that the U.S. already set a “precedent” for the use of nuclear weapons with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The clear implication is that Putin does not believe that the use of nukes, at least against battlefield targets, is not as big a deal as everyone else thinks it would be.
Another school of thought is that Russia might not increase its alert status, especially if it is determined to avoid a nuclear crisis with the West. Tactical nuclear weapons are by design extremely rugged, and a nuclear weapon could be smuggled near the front line in something as small as a car. A weapon with 10-kiloton yield would create a fireball a quarter mile wide and cause third-degree burns up to three quarters of a mile away. Ukrainian forces are typically spread out to avoid artillery fire, so even this sort of weapon would not create large numbers of casualties. Casualties might not be the point, though: the use of even a small nuke would send a signal to Ukraine that Russia has nukes and it does not, and Russia could use even larger ones to obliterate whatever target it wants.
Only Putin knows if he is planning to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. That’s enough to make anyone uneasy. But what Putin does not know is what the U.S. and the West would do in response. That might be enough to make Putin himself uneasy—and prevent him from pressing the nuclear button.
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