This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on November 19 updating and expanding Moscow’s nuclear doctrine to allow for the use of atomic weapons in case of an attack on Russia by a nonnuclear actor that is backed by a nuclear power.
The move comes just days after President Joe Biden reportedly gave Ukraine permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, to strike deep inside Russia. ATACMS have a range of some 300 kilometers.
The updated doctrine says Russia would consider using nuclear weapons after receiving “reliable information about the launching of a massive attack against it and missiles crossing the Russian border.”
Moscow will consider “aggression by a nonnuclear state — but with the participation or support of a nuclear-armed state — as a joint attack on the Russian Federation,” the document says, without clarifying whether such an aggression would automatically trigger a nuclear response.
Experts highlighted that one key change is that the aggression would not need to pose an existential threat to Russia, with the threshold for a response lowered to aggression that presents a “critical threat to the sovereignty and/or territorial integrity” of the country.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked if a conventional Ukrainian attack using U.S. missiles could potentially trigger a nuclear response, said that it could, pointing out that the revised passage also included threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia’s ally Belarus.
The document also expands the list of states and military alliances against which nuclear “deterrence” can be carried out, as well as the “list of military threats for the neutralization of which nuclear deterrence measures are carried out.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov downplayed the significance of the changes to the nuclear doctrine, saying in Brazil on November 19 that Moscow is “determined to do everything possible to prevent a nuclear war.”
However, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, described the changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine as “completely irresponsible.”
“It is not the first time that Putin plays the nuclear gamble,” he said in Brussels, saying “any call for nuclear warfare is an irresponsibility.”
In Washington, a National Security Council spokesperson said that the White House was “not surprised by Russia’s announcement” and that the United States did not plan to adjust its own nuclear doctrine in response.
The review of Russia’s nuclear doctrine was first mentioned by Putin on September 25, 2024, at a meeting of the Russian Security Council amid discussions around allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia.
Peskov, asked whether the change in doctrine — which was announced as Russia’s war on Ukraine marked its 1,000th day — was linked to the reported move by Biden, said the update was released “in a timely manner” based on the “current situation.”
The reported U.S. decision, which has yet to be officially confirmed by the White House, comes after months of insistence by Kyiv to be allowed to use Western-donated long-range systems to strike military targets deep inside Russia.
Britain and France have also supplied Ukraine with their jointly-made Storm Shadow missiles which have a 250-kilometer range, but have so far refrained from giving Kyiv approval to use them against targets farther into Russia.
Meanwhile, on November 18, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said once again that Germany will not send its Taurus missiles, which have a 500-kilometer range, to Ukraine.
