Supreme leaders achieve their positions and then hold them by controlling events to their advantage. It is natural, therefore, to assume that even when they appear to have lost control, they will find a way to regain it.
This assumption is behind the common refrain these days, even heard from people who would dearly like Vladimir Putin to fail, that he will not allow it to happen, that even at this late stage he will find something to do that will turn the tide of the war.
That something will have to go beyond adding to the hurt and misery already caused, which we know he can do. It must also stave off Russia’s defeat and that is another matter. In addition, therefore, to speculating about what Putin might do next, we also need to ask what good it will do him.
Russia’s Way Forward
On Friday, Sep. 16, Putin spoke at a news conference at the conclusion of a conference in Uzbekistan. This conference was most memorable for evidence of Russia’s increasing isolation, even among countries that might have been expected to be more sympathetic.
As there were visible signs of Central Asian states distancing themselves further from Russia, Putin was obliged to acknowledge that both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had concerns about the war.
Putin sought to explain how he would win the war. Asked about the Ukrainian counter-offensive he said: ‘Let’s see how it goes and how it ends.’ Then, asked if the war plan needed to be adjusted, he stressed Russia’s minimum rather than maximum objectives: ‘The main goal is the liberation of the entire territory of Donbas’.
This is a narrower focus than the one with which he started and with which he was still toying a few weeks ago. He reported that the work to achieve this objective ‘continues despite these counteroffensive attempts by the Ukrainian army. The general staff considers some things important, some things secondary, but the main task remains unchanged, and it is being implemented.’
Perhaps he appreciates that Kharkiv is lost and Kherson may go soon. Certainly it informs the Russian offensive in Donetsk, which still continues, very much as before, despite the setbacks elsewhere.
While the West worries that Russia might resort to escalation in response to Ukrainian advances, Putin claims to see it the other way round. He spoke of ‘attempts to perpetrate terrorist attacks and damage our civilian infrastructure’, referring presumably to occasional Ukrainian attacks on the territory of the neighbouring Belgorod oblast and of Crimea. He added:
‘Terrorist attacks are a serious matter. In fact, it is about using terrorist methods. We see this in the killing of officials in the liberated territories, we even see attempts at perpetrating terrorist attacks in the Russian Federation, including – I am not sure if this was made public – attempts to carry out terrorist attacks near our nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation. I am not even talking about the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.
We are monitoring the situation and will do our best to prevent a negative scenario from unfolding. We will respond if they fail to realise that these approaches are unacceptable. They are, in fact, no different than terrorist attacks.’
Somewhat bizarrely for the head of a country that has been systematically terrorizing people in occupied territories and launching missiles on a regular basis against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, he insisted that Russia had been ‘responding rather restrainedly, but that’s for the time being.’ Noting that ‘a couple of sensitive blows’ had been delivered against Ukraine, he added: ‘Well, what about that? We will assume that these are warning strikes. If the situation continues to develop in this way, the answer will be more serious.’ This was apparently a reference to the strikes that followed Ukraine’s successful offensive in Kharkiv, causing widespread blackouts and damaging a dam in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih.
The reference to more to come may well have been intended to keep alive fears that at some point along this line nuclear weapons might be used, but that was not explicit and Russia still has means to inflict such damage without resorting to these weapons.
Nuclear Use
Yet the nuclear issue now comes up frequently. It is currently probably the matter for the greatest speculation, including in Kyiv and Washington, when officials and commentators ask what Putin might do next. Rose Gottemoeller, a former top US nuclear policy-maker and NATO’s deputy secretary general until 2019, told the BBC of her fear that ‘Putin and his coterie’ will ‘strike back now in really unpredictable ways that may even involve weapons of mass destruction.’ She did not expect ICBM launches, but possibly another form of nuclear sabre-rattling – ‘a single strike over the Black Sea, or perhaps a strike at a Ukrainian military facility’ to ‘strike terror not only into the hearts of the Ukrainians’ and its allies.
This is not a possibility that should be dismissed in a cavalier fashion. Russia has abundant stores of nuclear weapons, in a variety of shapes and sizes, and Putin might be desperate enough to use them. Because he has already done some really stupid things who can say for sure that he won’t do anything even stupider.
This possibility is not negligible, and that is worrying enough in itself. But it is not enough to answer the question of whether he might give a nuclear order by references to his mental state or assumptions that because he is being humiliated he might respond with a tantrum to end all tantrums.
We need to consider exactly what problems, military and/or political this might solve. Matthew Kroenig writing for the Atlantic Council warns that a Russian nuclear strike ‘could cause a humanitarian catastrophe, deal a crippling blow to the Ukrainian military, divide the Western alliance, and compel Kyiv to sue for peace.’ But will it?
To act this way would break a ‘taboo’ that has developed around nuclear use since the only time they were used in anger in August 1945. It was a taboo that Putin himself acknowledged with President Biden in June 2021, when they reaffirmed the observation affirmed by Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan in 1985: ‘nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’
It would also represent an extreme version of the behaviour his forces have already been following. Russia is not short of means of causing hurt and suffering and has shown no reluctance to use them. Ukrainian towns and cities have been pummelled by Russian shells, rockets and missiles, directed against residential buildings, factories, transportation hubs, power plants and much more. Over last weekend the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Mykolaiv oblast was struck. Thankfully the reactor was not hit, although there were explosions only 300 metres away.
Russia’s campaign has seen thresholds of violence being passed with disturbing regularity. In addition to the long-distance strikes there have been the more intimate crimes uncovered after the occupying forces have left, of tortures, murders, rapes, abductions, and looting.
If these were supposed to have a strategic purpose, and are not just random acts of cruelty and malevolence (some clearly come into this category), then one would suppose the intention would be to make the Ukrainians ready to concede. In practice the effect has been the opposite. It has hardened their resolve and made them even more determined to rid their country of a Russian presence.
Despite all that they have been through Ukrainians are showing extraordinary levels of resilience, unity, and determination. When asked, the Ukrainian government says that even nuclear use would have the same effect.
It is especially important to note that just because nuclear weapons have not been employed that does not mean that they have had no influence on the course of this conflict. They have played an important deterrent role.
Just before the invasion began Putin took part in an annual drill involving Russian missiles. Then, when he announced the ‘special operation’ on 24 February, he remarked that ‘whoever tries to hinder us’ will face ‘consequences that you have never faced in your history.’ Three days later he publicly ordered his defence minister Shoigu and chief of the general staff Gerasimov ‘to transfer the army’s deterrence forces to a special mode of combat duty’. This did not amount to much in practice: the point was to underline a deterrence threat.
The threat was directed against any thoughts in NATO countries about directly intervening to support Ukraine. Threats of this type were made in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. Then Putin stated that other countries ‘should understand it’s best not to mess with us,’ adding unnecessarily that ‘Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers’.
At the time, as now, Russian media broadcast regular, lurid descriptions of the terrible things Russia would do to any countries that interfered, neglecting to mention what these countries could do back in return. The aim was to present Russia as a country with unlimited power, a will to use it, and little sense of proportion, so that any minor provocation could result in terror raining down on the perpetrator.
These threats were geared to reinforcing Putin’s original message. Take the contributions of Andrei Gurulev, a Lieutenant General, member of the Duma, and regular media commentator, who was directly involved in Russia actions in the Donbas in 2014-15. He is something of a charmer. The Ukrainian authorities have released an intercepted call from him on February 28, 2022, just after the invasion, issuing orders to set Ukrainian households on fire. He instructed an invading unit: ’Burn them, damn it, burn them! Once you’ve thrown them out of there – finish the house, burn it down! Spit at that f*cking humanism!’
He has a thing about destroying Britain. On state television in August, when asked if Britain was readying for war with Russia, Gurulev replied that this was already the case. Russia was fighting both Britain and the US in Ukraine.
‘Let’s make it super simple. Two ships, 50 launches of Zircon [missiles]—and there is not a single power station left in the UK. Fifty more Zircons—and the entire port infrastructure is gone. One more—and we forget about the British Isles. A Third World country, destroyed and fallen apart because Scotland and Wales would leave. This would be the end of the British Crown. And they are scared of it.’
More recently, Gurulyov noted that Biden had warned Russia against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He observed that ‘we may use them but not in Ukraine.’ This time he made particular mention of strikes against decision-making centres in Berlin, threatening Germany with total chaos, along with his familiar theme of turning the British Isles into a ‘martian desert’ in 3 minutes flat.’ He added, oddly, that this could be done with ‘tactical nuclear weapons, not strategic ones,’ and, confidently, that the US would not respond. All this was linked to preventing NATO getting directly involved. ‘We shouldn’t be shy about it or fear it. … They should tuck their tails in and keep up yapping.’
Strip away the absurd rhetoric and braggadocio, and it is clear the focus remains on deterring NATO countries, now including the provision of Ukraine with the means to mount deep strikes against Russian territory.
As another recent example, Russian TV presenter Olga Skabeyeva, who regularly describes the current conflict as World War III, made specific threats with regard to the potential delivery of the long-range (300km) Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missile from the US to Ukraine. ‘Russia has every right to defend itself. That’s to say, to strike Poland or the US’s Ramstein base in Germany, for example.’
The current narrative in Moscow is that the troubles they now face are not because of the exertions of the Ukrainians but because they are backed by the best Western weapons. It is a familiar refrain that they are at war with NATO.
These threats have not been ignored by NATO. It was determined right at the start that there would be no direct intervention by member states. That was behind their refusal to agree to Kyiv’s pleas to set up a non-fly zone to push Russian aircraft from the skies over Ukraine.
President Biden has been clear that he does not want to give Putin an excuse to escalate, which is one reason why he has been reluctant to authorise the ATACMS deployment. Another reason is that the Pentagon is unconvinced that this would make a large difference to Ukraine’s military performance.
The Americans have also sought to warn the Russians about the risks associated with nuclear escalation. In an interview with CBS, the President explained that turning to nuclear or other unconventional weapons would ‘change the face of war unlike anything since World War II. … They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been.’ He added that ‘depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.’
The concluding Part 2 to follow.
Reprinted from Comment is Freed. See the original here.
Lawrence Freedman is Emeritus Professor of War Studies King’s College London. His next book is: Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine (UK Penguin, US OUP)
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
