Future of nuclear risk: Analyzing the West and Russia's escalation strategies

For years, Russia has been using the nuclear threat, but after the aggression against Ukraine, this topic began to appear much more frequently. The independent Russian news portal Meduza raises the question of whether we are really at risk of a nuclear conflict and if the consent to Ukraine's use of Western weapons to attack targets on Russian territory could push us towards it.

For years, Russia has often and willingly used the nuclear threat, but after the aggression against Ukraine, this threat has become much more real than ever before. The West seems to treat the more or less veiled threats of using nuclear weapons as blackmail with elements of bluff. Now "the discussion about the threat of uncontrolled escalation toward nuclear war" has returned in a new form.

Recently, Western countries have had to ask themselves whether they are ready for escalation, which at least theoretically could threaten a nuclear conflict, to save Ukraine. Many leaders have already allowed Ukraine to use the weapons provided to them to attack targets located on Russian territory. In response, the Kremlin has equally openly theorized how it might react to such consent.

Even the United States officially allowed the use of weapons supplied to Ukraine against targets on Russian territory. However, with the stipulation that the attacks can only be carried out in border areas and only when these targets strike back at Ukraine. Many countries did not condition their consent with such reservations.

Putin responded by describing theoretical escalation possibilities. He stated that he does not plan to use non-strategic nuclear weapons, but reminded that Russia possesses them, has a lot of them, and the force of each charge is three times larger than the force of the bombs dropped by the United States on Japan in 1945. He also reminded us that Russia has a doctrine that strictly defines the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons.

Putin also suggested that Russia could escalate in other ways, such as providing "weapons of the same class [that are being supplied to Ukraine by the United States and other NATO countries] to countries and organizations" in conflict with the West so they would have the capability to strike Western "sensitive targets." The Meduza portal notes that Ukrainians have already used Western weapons to attack the border regions of the Russian Federation several times, and it did not meet the promised nuclear retaliation.

All this suggests that at the current stage of the discussion, it's not about Western weapons or the entire territory of Russia but about some specific weapons and specific targets - emphasizes Meduza.

According to Meduza, many experts and politicians in the West, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, believe there are "really no 'red lines' that Ukraine's allies should not cross in the process of helping Kyiv." In their opinion, Russia is trying to blackmail and bluff. The United States and Germany approach the matter slightly differently, still trying to set boundaries. This means that even in the third year of the war, they still take the threat of escalation from the Kremlin seriously.

The nuclear conflict did not follow the supply of various types of weapons, from defensive equipment to long-range missiles. The critical point was when Russia began to suffer increasingly severe defeats. Then, there was a risk that the regime would take more radical steps. However, this did not happen, which can also be attributed to the mobilization of recruits and the reduction of the front lines, tipping the scale of victory to its side.

In the West, however, there is another explanation for the fact that Russian leaders did not dare to "press the button": allegedly, the United States managed to convince China to point out to Putin that using nuclear weapons in any form is unacceptable – even as a scare tactic. According to Washington, NATO's retaliatory threats also had an effect.

In any case, the experience of three years of war shows that the opponents – the West and the Kremlin – do not want a direct clash or a completely uncontrolled development of the conflict. Therefore, the risk of nuclear war between them is still low – concludes Meduza.