Threatening gesture against NATO
Russia reports: deterrence weapons on alert
Russian President Vladimir Putin activated his country’s nuclear forces on Sunday. Photo: Alexei Nikolsky/Pool Sputnik Kremlin/AP/dpa
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Putin had ordered the step – and justified it with NATO’s aggressiveness. The peace research institute Sipr does not expect that the Ukraine war will lead to the use of nuclear weapons.
The Russian Defense Ministry has put the nuclear power’s deterrent weapons on increased alert.
Minister Sergei Shoigu said so to Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a statement from the agency. Specifically, he named the strategic missile troops, the Northern and Pacific fleets and the long-range aviation forces. Putin ordered the move in response to aggressive NATO statements.
In a video distributed by the Kremlin on Sunday, Putin spoke of deterrence weapons and did not explicitly name nuclear weapons. “The top figures of the leading NATO countries allow aggressive statements against our country, so I order the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff to put the forces of deterrence of the Russian army into a special regime of alert.”
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has criticized Putin’s indirect threat of nuclear weapons. “I call on Russia to refrain from such escalating statements in the future,” she said in Berlin. She also stressed that NATO poses no threat to Russia. But Putin’s statement should be taken seriously.
The USA currently sees no reason to change its own defense readiness. “We are evaluating President Putin’s order and currently see no reason to change our own alert level,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in Washington. US State Department spokesman Ned Price also said: “We believe there is no need for change.”
Putin: Russia one of “the most powerful nuclear powers in the world”
In his statement on the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine last Thursday, Putin warned against engaging in aggression against Russia. He threatened the harshest consequences and emphasized that Russia is now one of “the most powerful nuclear powers in the world”. Putin also held a large-scale exercise by the nuclear forces on February 19. Weapons without nuclear warheads were used.
After Putin’s speech, the Stockholm peace research institute Sipri announced that it did not expect the Ukraine war to lead to the use of nuclear weapons. “I don’t think nuclear war is a likely consequence of this crisis,” said Sipri Director Dan Smith of the German Press Agency in Scandinavia.
“When nuclear weapons exist, then unfortunately there is always this small possibility. And that would be catastrophic.”