BBC News
Russia Rattles Its Nuclear Sabre
By Nayyer Ali MD
Putin’s mad gamble to seize Ukraine and make it part of Russia failed miserably in its first few days. But since this war started in February, there has been great uncertainty about how it could possibly end. The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be both clever and motivated in defending their nation, and this war has done more to solidify Ukrainian nationalism than any other event in the last 30 years since it became independent.
Russia on the other hand has suffered defeat after defeat and finds itself humiliated on the battlefield. But it still remains in possession of about 15% of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and a portion of the Donbas region in the east that it seized in 2014, plus a significant stretch along the Black Sea coast that it seized in February when the war started. But the Ukrainians have been steadily pushing back on Russian forces. The advances made in the north near Kiev were abandoned by Russia months ago, and in September Russian forces were expelled from Kharkiv province in the northeast. Now they are being pushed back in the Donbas and in the south in Kherson province. Ukrainian advances have slowed in October with the arrival of the autumn rains which turn much of the terrain to mud, but as the ground hardens with winter cold, Ukrainian forces will be well positioned to resume their advance.
Russia meanwhile has seen its vaunted military disintegrated. The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk months ago. Over two thousand Russian tanks have been destroyed or captured, as have over 200 aircraft. Russia’s air force has totally failed to win air supremacy and remains unable to strike Ukrainian targets behind the lines. The best trained and equipped army formations have been chewed up and only remnants now remain. Russia had to resort to a partial mobilization in October, which has involved drafting men, many of whom are too old or unfit to be useful soldiers. Russia has no capacity to train and equip these new recruits, and they are going to be sent to their deaths. Over 600,000 Russian men have fled the country to avoid the draft, going to Europe or Central Asia or the Caucasus region.
The Ukrainians meanwhile are having entire brigades receiving training in the UK and other Western nations. Major weapons systems continue to flow from the US and Europe to Ukraine, most importantly the HIMARS long range precision GPS guided rocket systems that have done so much to take out Russian supply and command centers. Significant artillery, ammunition, rations, intelligence, and communication support act to greatly enhance the power of Ukraine’s military.
The world can see where this is going. Slowly but surely the Ukrainians are going to defeat Putin and will be able to reconquer their entire territory, not just what was seized in February, but also what Putin grabbed in 2014. Russia lacks the ability to stop them. But Russia does have one thing Ukraine does not, nuclear weapons. Russia could be tempted to drop a nuclear bomb, and that would open a whole new world of dangers.
This is not merely a bad dream, but a real possibility if Putin feels his power is endangered by defeat. What would be Putin’s red line for using nuclear weapons? Clearly, if the Ukrainians went onto the offensive within Russia itself, such as an advance toward Moscow, a nuclear response would be on the table. But there is no chance of that, as Ukraine’s military is dependent on Western aid, and the West will not support such an attack, nor is there anything Ukraine could gain by going for Moscow. Putin would not use nuclear weapons just to stop the current progress of the Ukrainians as they take back territory seized since February. But what if Ukraine were to take Crimea back? That would be potentially dangerous.
Crimea was seized by the Russians from the Ottoman Turks in the 18 th century. At the time it was mostly populated by Crimean Tartars, who were a Muslim ethnic group. But over the centuries, Russians moved in and became the majority, greatly assisted by massive oppression of the Tartars, especially by Josef Stalin. Now the Tartars are a minority, and the Russians the majority, with the balance made up of Ukrainians. Crimea was part of Russia until the 1950’s, when Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev “gifted” Crimea to Ukraine. Back then this was purely a symbolic move of no real importance. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Crimea was now part of independent Ukraine instead of Russia. In fact, Crimea is the only province of Ukraine that has a Russian-speaking majority.
This ethnic and linguistic backstory explains why Putin is particularly fixated on getting the world and Ukraine to recognize Russia’s seizure of Crimea as legitimate. If the Ukrainians advance into Crimea, this does raise the possibility of Putin resorting to nuclear weapons in response.
But in the end, Putin will hold back. The US and EU have made clear through private channels that the Western reaction to the use of nuclear weapons would be devastating to Russia. US and NATO forces would probably strike Russian military units in Ukraine, and Russian naval vessels would be fair game on the open ocean. The economic sanctions would be an order of magnitude higher, and the hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets would be confiscated. Anyone in the Russian military complicit with a nuclear attack in any way would face war crimes charges. Most importantly, a nuclear attack on Ukrainian military would not change the ground situation much at all. Russia would still be defeated. A nuclear strike on a Ukrainian city is simply an unthinkable act of mass murder, and it is hard to see how Putin could get his own personnel to carry out such madness. He would likely be overthrown if he did.
This leaves open the question of how this war ends. Will it be on the battlefield alone, with Ukraine slowly liberating its territory over the next 6-9 months? Will the overstretched and exhausted Russian military suddenly collapse in a rout? Will Putin be overthrown? Or will we have a negotiated end? If Putin was willing to end this war for the price of getting to hold onto Crimea, should the West say no? The right answer is that it is up to the Ukrainians themselves.
The West should continue to support their war effort, and let Ukraine decide if they wish to give up some their country to end the war sooner. But Ukraine will need to have the freedom to join the EU and NATO after the war is over. The alternative, a Ukraine that is kept out of NATO, means a Ukraine that will want its own nuclear arsenal, so it can never be threatened by Russia again. This is why letting nuclear blackmail work is such a bad idea. If Putin succeeds here, every nation that can, will want to build its own nuclear arsenal so that it will not be subject to such threats by anyone. By 2030 the world could have 10 or 15 more nuclear armed states. That is an outcome we all need to avoid.
