It’s a move that can reduce UK to a giant melted spot! It’s a move that can send chills down Washington DC’s spine!
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday finally announced changes in Russia’s nuclear policy. He held a meeting with his Security Council in Moscow and said in a new warning to the West that any nation’s conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.
Putin emphasised that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that posed a “critical threat to their sovereignty”, a vague formulation that leaves broad room for interpretation.
The Russian president is the primary decision-maker on Russia’s nuclear arsenal and needs to give his final approval to the changes.
The previous nuclear doctrine, issued by Putin four years back, said Russia could use nukes in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state. Some hawks in the Russian military were not happy with this and called for lowering the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.
The move comes as Ukraine’s Western allies consider whether to allow Kyiv to use longer-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Ukraine on the other hand has urged Western nations to ignore Putin’s warnings. Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, said Putin’s latest remarks were little more than blackmail.
Yermak said: “Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail. These instruments will not work.”
Well, Ukraine is free to assume anything but the fact of the matter is that Russia seems to have realised that Western belligerence can be only controlled by posing a serious nuclear threat.
In July, Russia had kicked off the third phase of exercises for its non-strategic nuclear forces. During the exercises, Russian military personnel practiced installing dummy warheads on launch vehicles and moving them to designated areas “in preparation for electronic launches.”
Then In August, Russia unveiled its latest drone, a “Doomsday” first-person view aerial vehicle designed to monitor radiation levels in the event of a nuclear attack.
Just earlier this month, Moscow was said to be “fully ready” for exploding a nuclear bomb at “any moment” in the Arctic. According to a report in the Daily Mail, the director of an old Soviet test site in the Novaya Zelmlya archipelago insisted that testing facilities are ready and can be used immediately ‘if the order is given’. The site has not been used for nuclear testing since October 1990, after which the ailing USSR ruled out future tests, a pledge still upheld by Russia.
Earlier, Russian Parliament speaker Vyachelsav Volodin had warned that in the event of strikes on Russian cities with Western missiles, ‘more powerful weapons are at the ready’ to hit back.
Just last week, traces of radioactive Cesium-137 were measured along Norway’s border with Russia.
Experts feared that Russia might be testing its ‘Flying Chernobyl’ missile at Novaya Zelmlya site. The nuclear-armed missile if officially known as Burevestnik.
So, can we say we are officially heading towards a nuclear war now? And if yes, who can stop it? No one, until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are in charge of the US government.
