Kremlin says changes to nuclear doctrine are a ‘warning’ to the West

A revision of the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine is actively intended to discourage Western countries from supporting an attack on Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dimitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

Peskov said that the changes made in the doctrine should be considered a “warning” to Ukraine’s allies, threatening that attacks on Russia would have “consequences”.

The changes made on Wednesday during a meeting of Russia’s Security Council confirmed that any attack on Russia supported by a nuclear power would be considered a “joint attack” on the country.

The alteration was clearly aimed at discouraging Western countries from giving Ukraine permission to use their weapons to strike deep into Russian territory — something that could constitute a serious escalation of the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing hard for clearance from Washington, but the Biden administration has asked Ukraine to lay its combat objectives out more clearly before granting permission to launch long-range missiles at Russian targets.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he and other Kremlin voices have several times threatened the West with nuclear consequences to discourage it from ramping up its support for Kyiv.

Speaking on Thursday, Putin ruled out specifying whether such an attack would be met with a nuclear response, instead saying that Russia could use nuclear weapons for an assault that posed a “critical threat” to its sovereignty.

Putin noted that the revised doctrine spells out conditions for using nuclear weapons in greater detail, adding that they could be also used in case of any aerial attack — a ambiguous allusion to the West authorising longer-range missile strikes.

Earlier this month, Putin warned the US and other NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range weapons to hit Russian territory would put Russia and NATO in a direct conflict.