It is possible that senior Russian officers are about to launch an attack in retaliation to those of the last two days by the Ukrainians with Atacms missiles on Bryansk and Storm Shadow on Kursk, hence the US intelligence alarm about Kiev, which is causing the closure of embassies, including the Italian one. However, the United States sees no clear indication that Russia is preparing for a nuclear attack, as the Pentagon said on Tuesday, despite the Kremlin’s announcement of a change of position on nuclear weapons doctrine. that guy. This change in doctrine is nevertheless alarming, but it does not mean that the world is on the brink of nuclear war, because while it allows the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear attack and to carry out attacks against Western nations that are supplying weapons to countries engaged in a conflict with Russia, namely Ukraine, on the other hand cannot hide in any way the preparations necessary to launch such devices, actions which are tracked by satellites (and by informants, reconnaissance, etc. ).
In fact, this rule in the “doctrine” was originally changed last September, but Russian government officials, in their speeches, are now reporting this change to the public by linking it to reported Ukrainian attacks with US-supplied Atacms missiles on Russian territory. For the Kremlin Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrovspeaking on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Brazil, it was therefore easy to say that the Ukrainian use of missiles is “a signal that they want escalation, using such sophisticated missiles without the Americans is impossible. Putin he warned about this and how our position will change.” Indeed, the new doctrine emphasizes that it is the Russian president who decides when to use nuclear weapons, which is ultimately what matters for international relations, but what Lavrov uses is intentionally ambiguous language intended to signal a possibility and discourage further initiatives .
Some other Western observers, more linked to “neighboring” countries such as Poland and Denmark and inclined to increase military spending, believe that the change in doctrine indicates that the Russian president Vladimir Putin is preparing to respond to US support for Ukraine with nuclear escalation by “lowering the bar” for committing such weapons, a clear signal to NATO to back down. And it remains difficult to know when Putin is he bluffing or not. In response to questions about the change in doctrine, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh he told the US press: “We have no indication that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.” The tactics of Putin is therefore to emerge an internal consensus that Moscow must employ more assertive measures to coerce the West and show how far it is willing to go to achieve its goals in Ukraine. The Russians have multiple avenues to threaten the West over its continued support for Ukraine, for example by arming Yemeni Houthi rebels or sabotaging undersea cables. But so far the Kremlin has done the opposite, also avoiding hitting the positions on Ukrainian territory where it is known that US military instructors and, in general, NATO countries are present.
