Nuclear warnings serve Putin’s purpose as he bids for new term

Nuclear warnings serve Putin’s purpose as he bids for a new term. As time runs out on the final treaty that restricts the number of warheads that each side may deploy, the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin continuing in office for a further six years does not appear to be likely to result in a reduction in the level of nuclear tensions that exist between Russia and the United States.

Since the beginning of his invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin has bragged that Russia possesses the most modern nuclear weapons in the world and that Moscow is capable of eradicating any aggressor.

On Monday, three days after announcing that he would run for re-election in March, Putin presided over a ceremony to raise the flag for two new submarines. One of the submarines was the Emperor Alexander III, which had conducted a test of a nuclear-capable Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile the previous month.

While Putin has denied that Moscow is “brandishing” nuclear weapons and has resisted efforts to embrace a more assertive stance about the possibility of their use, he has announced the deployment of tactical nuclear missiles in Belarus, which is both his neighbor and an ally. Putin has also placed his nuclear forces on high alert.

Even though Moscow has stated that it would not carry out a test—which would be its first since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991—until the United States did so, Putin signed a measure last month that revoked Russia’s ratification of the worldwide treaty that prohibits nuclear testing.

As Putin’s conventional forces have failed in Ukraine and as Western nations have weaned themselves off of Russian energy, his capacity to impose pressure by cutting off oil and gas has been weakened, according to some security analysts. As a result, nuclear weapons have acquired a more considerable prominence in Putin’s thinking and rhetoric.

According to observers, the leader of the Kremlin has no interest in engaging in discussions with the United States government over the reduction of nuclear danger. This is because Moscow feels that the fear that it may resort to nuclear weapons is precisely what has prevented the United States and its allies from immediately joining the battle on Ukraine’s side.

Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who is now a senior fellow at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, addressed the question, “How can you reduce the risk if you continue to play the nuclear card vis-à-vis the United States and NATO?” Sokov is a senior fellow at the Vienna Center.

“How can you discuss something to make sure that nuclear weapons are never, ever actually used if you want to keep the threat—maybe not really high but at least at some kind of visible and credible level?”

WATCHING THE CLOCK

By the time Putin’s anticipated second term begins in May of next year, there will be fewer than two years left until the expiration of the second START deal, which places a limit of 1,550 strategic nuclear weapons and bombs on either side of the border between Russia and the United States. The pact is scheduled to expire on February 4, 2026.

After the inauguration of Vice President Joe Biden as President of the United States of America at the beginning of 2021, the pact, which had been scheduled to expire in 2021, was hastily extended for five years.

For various reasons, however, the prospects for a further extension, much less a more ambitious successor deal, are not very promising. Another issue that complicates things is China’s nuclear buildup, and it is not entirely obvious who will be in command of the White House by 2026.

This year, Putin decided to suspend Russia’s participation in New START. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov stated last month that Moscow would not resume dialogue with the United States unless the United States abandoned what he referred to as its “fundamentally hostile course” toward Russia. This statement was made about the unwavering support that the United States has shown for Ukraine, which Vice President Biden has stated is unshakeable.

Putin has frequently emphasized the potential of Russia’s new weapons systems, such as the Burevestnik cruise missile and the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. Ryabkov stated that Washington would be mistaken if it believed it could win an arms race against Russia similar to the one that Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, engaged in during the 1980s.

Nevertheless, such a competition would also put Russia under pressure. When it comes to nuclear weapons, Russia is well aware that an uncontrolled new nuclear arms race is something that they would not be able to afford and do not have the means to maintain. Even more so now because Russia is significantly weakened in most aspects due to its war against Ukraine,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

While he acknowledged that sanctions had not wholly destroyed Russia’s economy, he stated they constrain the country’s access to technology. He cited the disaster of Russia’s moon landing attempt in August as an example of a spectacular failure in high technology.

Sokov, a former Russian ambassador, expressed a different viewpoint. He stated that Russia’s research and development programs were far less expensive to operate than those of the United States and that Russia’s economy was in a better state than the Soviet Union’s economy was in the 1980s.

We are about to enter a new weapons race, regardless of what happens. He says, “It will not be a quantitative arms race in terms of changing numbers; rather, it will be an arms race about the quality of weapons as well as new types and new capabilities.”

“We will be living in a less stable situation, and the prospects of arms control are quite bleak.”