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Russia's Nuclear Rhetoric: Cold War Redux

Russia escalates nuclear saber-rattling as signaling to West over Ukraine

Russia's Nuclear Rhetoric: Cold War Redux

09 May 2025, Russia, Moscow: On the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany, Russia commemorated the end of the Second World War in 1945 with a large military parade on Red Square. The annual arms display is also seen as a demonstration of the nuclear power's might.

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Photo by Ulf Mauder/picture alliance via Getty Images

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EXPERT INTERVIEW — Russia has accompanied its war against Ukraine with an escalation of nuclear rhetoric reminiscent of that used during the Cold War. Soon after the February 2022 full-scale invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear deterrent forces to a “special regime of combat duty” in response to Western condemnation. In September 2022, Putin warned that Russia would “use all the means at our disposal” to defend its territorial integrity — widely interpreted as a veiled threat of the potential use of nuclear weapons — and insisted that the warning was “not a bluff.” Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, has warned of “full-scale nuclear war” with NATO.

In November 2024, Russia revised its nuclear doctrine, which appeared to lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons. The updated policy broadened scenarios for nuclear use to include conventional attacks deemed to pose a “critical threat” to Russia’s sovereignty or territorial integrity, and attacks by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear-armed state. Both cases relate directly to Ukraine, which has launched cross-border attacks into Russia while being supported by Western military aid.

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