Vladimir Putin has announced his intention to alter Russia’s nuclear doctrine during a conspicuously public meeting of his Security Council in Moscow, Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.
Convening the group of senior intelligence and defence chiefs whose role is to advise the president on issues of national security in a open format for the first time, Putin said that according to the updated version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, “aggression against Russia by a non-nuclear state with the backing or support of a nuclear state would be considered a joint attack by both countries on Russia.”
Putin added that a “critical threat to the sovereignty of the Russian Federation” posed by conventional non-nuclear weapons would also be seen as valid grounds for a nuclear response and that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against close ally Belarus.
A Russian nuclear response would follow in the case of “reliable information being received regarding the launch of an aerospace attack on Russia,” which Putin specified could include threats from “strategic and tactical aircrafts, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and other flying apparatus”.
Putin stressed that the Russian Federation always approached the use of its nuclear deterrent in a “highly responsible” manner and sought to prevent “the proliferation of nuclear weapons”.
Describing Putin’s announcement as the Kremlin’s response to persistent Ukrainian demands that the US, UK, and EU allow Kyiv to use Western long-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia, Telegram news channel Faridaily noted that the new wording “effectively allows Putin to use nuclear weapons at any time.”