Russia’s defense ministry announced today that it will carry out drills with troops based near Ukraine to practice for the possible use of battlefield nuclear weapons. This announcement marks the first time Moscow has publicly declared drills regarding tactical nuclear weapons.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that these drills are in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent reaffirmation that he would not rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine. Peskov also referenced British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s comment that Ukraine was free to use British weapons to strike inside Russia.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence service responded to the announcement, stating that “nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin’s regime”.
The announcement comes a day before Putin will be inaugurated for a fifth term in office.
“The exercises mark a return to nuclear saber-rattling for Putin,” write Andy Bounds and Max Seddon of the Financial Times. “Though tactical nuclear weapons carry a smaller payload than intercontinental nuclear weapons targeting the U.S., the warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945.”
In a piece for Foreign Affairs, Alex Crowther of the Center for European Policy Analysis, Jahara Matisek of the U.S. Naval War College, and Phillips P. O’Brien of the University of St. Andrews argue that “in reality, sending European troops to Ukraine would be a normal response to a conflict of this kind. Russia’s invasion disrupted the regional balance of power, and Europe has a vital interest in seeing the imbalance corrected.”
