NUCLEAR WEAPONSRussian Wargame Practicing Tactical Nukes Use Is Warning to West
Last month, the Russian defense ministry launched a multi-phase exercise near Ukraine meant to prepare its forces for using non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs). In addition to the obvious purpose of preparing Russian troops to use tactical nuclear weapons in battle, the multi-stage exercise was also meant to signal to the West that it should refrain from escalating assistance to Ukraine, as well as to warn the U.S. and its allies that Russia may liberalize its conditions for using nuclear weapons.
Last month, the Russian defense ministry launched a multi-phase exercise near Ukraine meant to prepare its forces for using non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs). In addition to the obvious purpose of preparing Russian troops to use tactical nuclear weapons in battle, the multi-stage exercise was also meant to signal to the West that it should refrain from escalating assistance to Ukraine, as well as to warn the U.S. and its allies that Russia may liberalize its conditions for using nuclear weapons. Finally, the exercise may be evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to retain Valery Gerasimov as head of the General Staff, at least for now.
That the Russian armed forces are planning a NSNW wargame became publicly known on May 6, when the country’s defense ministry (MoD) issued a statement disclosing that Putin—who is the commander-in-chief of the Russian armed forces—had ordered an exercise in the Southern Military District (SMD) to have MoD units practice using tactical nuclear weapons. The wargame is supposed to prepare these units for what the ministry described as “unconditionally ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation,” according to the statement.1 The defense agency’s rather curt announcement was followed by a longer statement from the country’s foreign ministry (MFA), which said that the planned wargame “should be considered in the context of recent bellicose statements by Western officials and sharply destabilizing actions taken by a number of NATO countries that are aimed at building forceful pressure on the Russian Federation and at creating additional threats to the security of our country in connection with the conflict in and around Ukraine.”
Echoing the MoD, the MFA said in its May 6 statement that the exercise would be aimed at practicing using NSNWs for the purpose of ensuring “the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state.” Thus, both Russia’s MoD and MFA implied within hours of each other that Russia could resort to nuclear strikes to protect its territorial integrity (Condition 1) and sovereignty (Condition 2), even though the publicly available versions of Russia’s strategic documents do not explicitly mention either of these two conditions.
