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Russia will make changes to its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it regards as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, state media quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Sunday.
The existing nuclear doctrine, set out in a decree by President Vladimir Putin in 2020, says Russia may use nuclear weapons in the event of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.
Some hawks among Russia’s military analysts have urged Putin to lower the threshold for nuclear use in order to “sober up” Russia’s enemies in the West.
I have no doubt large parts of their nuclear arsenal have been stripped to fund their maintainers’ Krokodil habits but it only takes one to start a nuclear war, and a smaller and simpler tactical warhead on a Khinzal or Kh-15 of the sort we’d likely see used against Ukraine is less likely to have been scavenged.