Amid Putin’s nuclear threat, the West convenes

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, threatened to use his country’s massive nuclear arsenal, which has the capacity to destroy the whole planet many times over, if his actions in Ukraine were questioned earlier this week. This marked a significant escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. At first, the US, NATO, and European countries were taken aback. They are aware that the use of nuclear weapons is unlikely to occur quickly. These are the last-resort weapons.

Furthermore, Putin is aware that once a nuclear assault is begun, there is no turning back, even though he carries a briefcase that serves as a communication tool connecting him to all of his senior military leaders. Nukes could only be used in the event that a NATO military invasion headed by the US endangered Russia’s survival. The West will also keep supporting Ukraine by providing soldiers and supplies via proxies in order to deplete Russian forces and resources after seeing Russia’s disastrous invasion, but it won’t escalate the situation further until Kyiv falls.

Days before he is expected to be re-elected for a six-year term, Putin has threatened to do so. He has forewarned Kyiv and the West that Moscow would not think twice to use its nuclear weapons, if required, to protect Russia’s territorial integrity (including the seized territories of Ukraine) against a military counteroffensive by Ukraine supported by NATO. He has cited legislation granting him permission to use nuclear weapons as well as Russia’s security policy.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and deputy chairman of the security council, who has been Putin’s longtime supporter, supports Putin’s position by stating that Moscow is legally permitted to defend any area it deems to be Russian territory. “These referendums are so feared in Kyiv and the West because encroachment on Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self-defense,” he had said in a Telegram message. He went on to say that the result could not be lawfully reversed by any future Russian leader. At a press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that his country had “an open document for nuclear security.”

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, said in an interview that he did not believe Putin was bluffing. “He wishes to frighten everyone on Earth.” Zelenskyy said, “These are the first moves in his nuclear blackmail. In response to a question on whether he believed Putin’s leadership would bring stability to Europe, Zelenskyy said, “No… Over the years, this has been seen by us. We don’t see consistency.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think tank that monitors nuclear stockpiles worldwide, claims that with close to 6,000 nuclear weapons, Russia has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal. Currently, over 1,500 of them are in use.

Putin is taking a risk, but why? For months, he had personally promoted a lack of public awareness of the conflict in the hopes of achieving quick military victories. However, the delay of his invasion has caused unrest in Russia, which is why Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons to raise the spirit of his people.

He issued an order for a mobilization as Russian forces started to make progress in 2022, knowing full well that it may cause significant unrest in the community. Thus, instead of ordering a complete mobilization, he chose to order a partial one.

In September 2022, commentator Anne Applebaum said in The Atlantic, “There’s a crisis within the military… The Russian army is dealing with a morale breakdown in addition to a tactical setback and a logistical dilemma. Because of this, Putin needs additional troops, and the Russian government has once again declared “voluntary surrender” to be illegal, just as it did during Stalin’s reign.

A Russian Parliament-approved statute imposes a maximum 10-year jail sentence. If you flee, as some Russian troops have done in recent weeks, by changing into civilian clothing and abandoning your guard station in Donetsk or Kherson, Applebaum said.

“Putin is losing support in the army, at home, and abroad. He was only trying to stop that deterioration with everything else he said, she noted.

According to analysts, the nuclear threat from the Kremlin is an attempt to compel Ukraine to submit. Political expert Tatiana Stanovaya said in 2022 that “it’s (the talk about immediate referendums) an absolutely unequivocal ultimatum from Russia to Ukraine and the West: either Ukraine retreats or it’s a nuclear war.”

The effect of the mobilization on the current situation remains uncertain. It was a huge task to equip, train, and deploy three hundred thousand troops to the front, particularly because Russia had already sent its best seasoned warriors to battle. Even yet, Russia only seldom acknowledged having suffered military defeats in Ukraine. Stanovaya said, “Almost nothing has gone according to plan since the start of the military operation.”

Experts suggest that it could be better to provide Ukraine more powerful weapons so that it can strike Russia and to counter a Russian nuclear attack using conventional military or diplomatic means.

Additionally, NATO aircraft, Patriot missiles, THAAD anti-missile batteries, and ATACMS long-range missiles—all of which Ukrainian troops would use to strike Russia—may be supplied by the US to Ukraine.

In its cities, new demonstrations are being sparked by the Russian mobilization. Additionally, it is causing rifts in Europe over whether or not to accept the large number of Russian males leaving their country who are of fighting age. The time is ticking for military strategists in Russia and Ukraine to complicate combat.

Despite the difficulty of the subject, NATO and the US do not want to seem equipped for a nuclear threat that is implied. The possibilities are not good, and it is unclear from the West’s position how it would respond to a tactical nuclear attack.