First pictures Russia’s new invasion of Ukraine seems to herald a fairly traditional land war: tank battles, artillery fire, and planes plunge low over cities. But even as Western leaders moved to respond forcefully to Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked aggression, they did so with great caution, aware that a dramatic escalation in Eastern Europe could spill over into two areas. new areas with much larger impacts on the outside world: cyberspace and nuclear war.
In a speech early Thursday morning Moscow time, Putin announced what he called a “special military operation” and issued a stark warning against Western interference. He said, in the comment officially translated because the Kremlin does not seem to leave much doubt about the threat of nuclear retaliation.
The comments immediately resonated as the most immediate nuclear threat the world has faced since President Donald Trump. Threats to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with “fire and fury” amid a fierce exchange of rhetoric in 2017. It’s even more unsettling in light of Russia’s gratuitous invasion, Putin’s potentially diabolical approach to the international situation and the real danger of a deliberate and unintended escalation between Russia and the West in the coming days. The world’s two major nuclear superpowers have not engaged in serious nuclear attacks in decades and previous Russian cyberattacks on Ukraine spilled over, causing billions of dollars in damage to Western networks and companies.
While the nuclear threat has largely receded from public perception in the more than a quarter century since the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons; both have around 6,500 in their current inventory, though a smaller portion is kept at the ready in silos, bombers and submarines. Far from being a vestige of the Cold War, nuclear weapons are more of a threat today than at any time in the 21st century.
The US and Russia have both spent billions of dollars upgrade their nuclear weapons in recent years, and nearly 90% of Russia’s nuclear stockpile has modernization, including the development of new weapons and the installation of a new cruise missile system on the bomber. The Trump administration also withdrew from the 30-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 after quote Russia’s efforts to develop and operate such a medium-range missile, known as the SSC-8. Furthermore, Russia’s nuclear readiness and technical capabilities to the United States are no more apparent than in previous years, after the Trump administration US pull get out Open skies, a long-supported pact that allows unarmed ad hoc surveillance windows to monitor an adversary’s nuclear readiness.
Against the backdrop of the military force built up in recent weeks along the Ukrainian border, Putin specifically cited a fictitious story that Ukraine is trying to re-establish its nuclear capability, which it abandoned in the 1990s amid Western efforts to secure the vast arsenal abandoned by the collapse of the Soviet Union. “If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will change drastically, especially for us, for Russia,” Putin said. “We cannot help but react to this real threat, so I repeat, Ukraine’s Western patrons can help the country acquire these weapons to pose a different threat. for our country.”
