Experts weigh in after President Putin put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert in a dramatic escalation of East-West tensions after the Ukraine invasion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's order on Sunday to put Russia's nuclear forces on high alert is part of a pattern of escalating tensions following his attack on Ukraine. But analysts suggest the move could spell a dangerous new hoax.
What are deterrence forces?
It was sharply opposed by Western powers, including the United States and NATO, when Putin said in a televised address that the country's nuclear "resistance forces" had been placed "in a special mode of combat service".
The United Nations called the idea of using nuclear weapons "unthinkable", while Ukraine's government said it saw the move as an attempt to intimidate as delegations from the two countries prepared to meet for exploration talks.
Just as in NATO, a portion of Russian nuclear weapons is in constant readiness and "can be launched within 10 minutes", said Mark Finaud, a nuclear proliferation specialist at the Geneva Center for Security Policy.
"Either the weapons are already mounted on the missiles, or the bombs are already aboard" bombers and submarines, he explained.
In a Friday article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, experts Hans Christensen and Matt Korda wrote that Russia maintains about 1,600 weapons deployed.
"As Russian strategic forces are always on alert, the real question is whether [Putin] deployed more subs or armed the attackers," Christensen wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
Why Alert Level?
Most analysts suggested that the branding of the nuclear option was a desperate move as a result of Russia's military setbacks since its invasion of Ukraine last week.
"Russia is frustrated by Ukraine's resistance," said David Khalfa of the Paris-based Jean Jares Foundation, a left-wing think-tank.
He said that instead of a swift victory with armored attacks, Moscow is now facing "an urban guerilla warfare with a high probability of casualties to Russian troops".
Eliot A. Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, said Russian military leaders expected an easy campaign.
"The fact that they no longer have air superiority in four days is quite revealing," Cohen said.
"You're starting to see weaknesses on the battlefield... the fact that they haven't been able to capture and hold a city tells you something."
Why announce publicly?
With Western aid to Ukraine and the ramifications of economic sanctions on Russia and its elite, Putin's public announcement could be an attempt to divide his enemies.
The Russian leader is "something a gambler and a risk taker," Cohen said. "What he's trying to do is treat us all psychologically."
Khalfa agreed that "the psychological side of things is important," with Putin "wanting to prevent the West from proceeding with economic sanctions".
"Everyone is rallying behind the Ukrainian flag, and he has a desire to drive a wedge between [NATO] coalition governments and public opinion in the West," he said.
But Khalfa also recalled that "in the opinion of everyone he met Putin, he has isolated himself, locked in insane logic ... his tactics are impossible to read."
Abandoning the Russian doctrine?
Putin's nuclear threat is even more perplexing because it goes against established Russian nuclear deterrence doctrine.
In 2020, Putin approved "basic principles" with four cases of when Moscow could use nuclear weapons.
They were when ballistic missiles were fired at Russia or allied territory, when an enemy used nuclear weapons, attacked a Russian nuclear weapons site, or posed a threat to the existence of a Russian state.
Neither of those criteria are met in the current conflict.
In addition, Russia joined the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council in signing a document in January confirming that "a nuclear war cannot and should never be fought". .
Putin's latest verbal statement, said Finaud, shows "the ambiguity, perhaps even hypocrisy" of this type of announcement.
"If we had applied the principle [of the joint statement] there would have been a major effort at disarmament. While we see relatively little done in that direction."
For now, "there is still a very high risk of a slip-up or misinterpretation" or even a deliberate manipulation that could trigger an atomic exchange, he said.