Putin Revises Nuclear Doctrine Amid Ukraine War

• President Vladimir Putin has signed a revised nuclear doctrine, declaring that any conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power is a joint attack on his country.

• The doctrine follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles.

• The doctrine demonstrates Putin’s readiness to use the country’s nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down as Moscow presses a slow-moving offensive in Ukraine.

• The doctrine states that an attack against Russia by a non-nuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation”.

• It also states that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear strike or a conventional attack posing a “critical threat to sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Russia and its ally Belarus.

• The doctrine does not specify whether such an attack would necessarily trigger a nuclear response and mentions the uncertainty of scale, time, and place of possible use of nuclear deterrent.