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The US military conducts a combustion test of its ATACMS missile on Dec. 14, 2021, at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. (courtesy of the US Defense Department; AFP/Yonhap)

Russian President Vladimir Putin approved revisions to his country’s nuclear doctrine on Tuesday to allow Moscow to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack on Russia with conventional weapons if the attacking country is supported by a nuclear power.

Russian state media TASS reported that Putin “signed a decree approving the Foundations of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence.” The revisions went into effect on the same day. 

The new nuclear doctrine expands the parameters of the countries and military alliances that can be targeted by Russia’s nuclear deterrence. It also expands the breadth of military threats that justify a nuclear response from Moscow. Experts say that the revised doctrine lowers the threshold for Russia using nuclear weapons, and have expressed concerns about nuclear war. 

Specifically, if a non-nuclear state attacks Russia with the aid of a nuclear power, the new nuclear doctrine considers this a “joint attack,” and allows Moscow to respond accordingly. Even if the initial attack only uses conventional weapons, if the offensive threatens Russian sovereignty or entails a large-scale attack on Russian soil or its ally Belarus with aircraft and missiles, the doctrine states that Russia can respond with nuclear weapons. 

These revisions were clearly made with Ukraine in mind. Currently, Ukraine is receiving military support from the US, the UK and France in its war against Russia. Back in September, when Ukraine called on the US, the UK, France and other Western countries to rescind restrictions on Kyiv’s use of weapons provided by the West to attack Russian soil, Putin warned the international community that he would revise Russia’s nuclear doctrine. 

Putin signed the new nuclear doctrine two days after reports on Sunday confirmed that US President Joe Biden approved Ukraine’s use of US-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to attack Russian soil. Shortly after the reports, Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of the Russian upper house’s international affairs committee, vehemently protested the move, warning, “This is a very big step towards the start of World War Three.”

US authorities are currently refusing to confirm reports about its approval of ATACMS missiles to attack Russian territory. When questioned about Ukraine using long-range missiles to attack Russia during a briefing on Monday, Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US State Department, said, “I don’t have any policy updates to speak to today.”

When the reporter pressed him by asking if he would rather not talk about policy change, or if there was indeed no change, Miller replied, “I said I’m not going to speak to any potential policy changes one way or the other.”

The reticence from the US State Department seems to reflect its concerns over a Russian response. 

Addressing the revised nuclear doctrine on Tuesday, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that factors like recent international geopolitics, escalations along the border, the nuclear superpowers that are supporting Ukraine in the Ukraine war, and the continuing encroachment of the NATO military infrastructure closer to the Russian border necessitated the revision of Russia’s nuclear doctrine and its nuclear deterrence policy. Peskov’s comments indicate that ATACMS missile attacks against Russia were related to the new nuclear doctrine. 

When questioned about whether the new doctrine’s position on using nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack by a non-nuclear country supported by a nuclear power was formulated under the consideration of Ukraine using Western-made weapons to attack Russia, Peskov answered affirmatively that the doctrine was formulated under such considerations.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer; Kim Won-chul, staff reporter

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