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Vladimir Putin ratcheted up the threat of a nuclear attack if US-supplied longer range missiles are fired by Ukraine into Russia.
The Russian president on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine declaring that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.
The move follows Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied ATACMS longer-range missiles.
In London, Downing Street criticised the Russian president’s announcement as “the latest example of irresponsibility that we have seen from the depraved Russian government”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokeswoman said: “Vladimir Putin could end this war tomorrow, he could remove his troops, roll back his tanks and end the onslaught and needless bloodshed in both Ukraine and Russia.
“That is entirely within his gift, we would urge him to do so.”
The US weapons were expected to be used to bolster Ukrainian forces which seized a part of the Kursk region in Russia in a surprise attack in the summer.
There were unconfirmed reports that one of them had been used to hit an ammunition store in Karachev in Russia's Bryansk region, around 75 miles from the Ukrainian border.
The outgoing US president’s decision is believed to be partly in response to thousands of North Korean troops being deployed to western Russia, possibly to join offensives against Ukrainian troops still holding out in Kursk.
The signing of the doctrine, which says that any massive aerial attack on Russia could trigger a nuclear response, reflects Putin’s readiness to threaten use of the country’s nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down as Moscow presses a slow-moving offensive in Ukraine.
Asked about whether the updated doctrine was deliberately issued after US decision to ease restrictions on Ukraine using its longer-range missiles to strike Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the document was published “in a timely manner”.
But China is believed to have warned Russia against using nuclear weapons in Putin’s war launched 1,000 days ago and which has left hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers killed and wounded, with similarly high casualties among Ukraine’s army, and thousands of civilians killed, including at last 660 children, according to UNICEF.
Today is the sobering milestone of 1,000 days since Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 19, 2024
As the people of Ukraine continue to bravely defend their sovereignty, the UK’s commitment to them remains ironclad.
As Putin’s war grinds on, Sir Keir Starmer stressed: “Today is the sobering milestone of 1,000 days since Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
“As the people of Ukraine continue to bravely defend their sovereignty, the UK’s commitment to them remains ironclad.”
His words came shortly after the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said America will announce additional security assistance for Ukraine in coming days.
The extra military supplies will be seen as an attempt to strengthen Kyiv’s position ahead of possible peace talks when Donald Trump becomes president in January, having claimed he could end the conflict in a day.
The UK has pushed for increasingly more powerful weapons to be supplied to Kyiv.
But it was not clear if America will give permission for British Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which use US navigational data, to be fired deep into Russia.
Putin first announced changes in the nuclear doctrine in September.
The new version of the document states that an attack against his country by a non-nuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation”.
It doesn’t specify whether such an attack would necessarily trigger a nuclear response. It mentions the “uncertainty of scale, time and place of possible use of nuclear deterrent” among the key principles of the nuclear deterrence.
At the same time, it spells out conditions for using nuclear weapons in greater detail compared to the previous version of the doctrine, noting they could be used in case of a massive air attack involving ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, drones and other flying vehicles.
