Amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, accused Western countries of prolonging the conflict, adding that Moscow “must be ready” to implement its revised nuclear doctrine, according to reports by Russian state-media outlet Tass on Sunday.
The outlet reported that Peskov said in an interview with Russian state-media VGTRK, “We can witness how Western countries are getting increasingly involved in [the Ukraine conflict]. They are not putting a break on [the conflict]. Rather, they declare their intention to push on with it in order to help Ukraine win.”
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have provided diplomatic and military aid support to Ukraine throughout the war after Russia invaded the Eastern European nation in February 2022.
Tensions between NATO countries and the Kremlin have continued as NATO leaders have increasingly warned that direct conflict with Moscow is a realistic danger as it has more nuclear warheads than any other country, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW). This comes after Putin and senior Russian officials have repeatedly threatened nuclear escalation against Kyiv and its Western partners.
On Wednesday, Putin announced revisions to Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, and according to Peskov, the changes are now being formalized. Peskov added that “the way tensions intensified near our borders, with nuclear powers taking part in the conflict…necessitated amendments to the nuclear doctrine,” according to Tass. “Against this backdrop, we must certainly make decisions and we must be ready to implement them.”
During a televised meeting of Russia’s Security Council on Wednesday, the Russian leader said an attack that poses a critical threat to the sovereignty of Russia could be carried by a nonnuclear power with the participation or support of a nuclear power. This could lead to potential nuclear escalation and retaliation.
No countries were mentioned, but the context was clear—as the war has seen an increase in Ukraine’s use of American, British and French missiles on Russian targets. Putin’s comments came a day ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s in-person request to U.S. lawmakers in Washington, D.C., on Thursday for more long-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin’s press office for comment via email on Sunday.
ALEXEI DANICHEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told Newsweek in an email on Sunday that the department is “not surprised” by Putin’s comments, saying they “highlight Russia’s attempts to use irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and employ coercive nuclear signaling as it has done against Ukraine for more than two years.”
The spokesperson added: “Neither the United States nor NATO pose any threat to Russia, and irresponsible Russian nuclear rhetoric will not improve Russia’s security. We will continue to support Ukraine as it defends its people and its sovereign territory from Russia’s aggression.”
Other experts weren’t surprised by the Russian president’s rhetoric either, and some like Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Putin’s comments do not signal any changes to Russia’s nuclear posture. “It’s a bluff,” he told Newsweek earlier this week. “If they’d mean it, we’d all have had a nuclear escalation already.”
Putin has previously approved tactical nuclear weapons drills, and in August, Russia prepared “units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the combat use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons,” the Russian defense ministry said.
Russia has an estimated 5,580 nuclear warheads, according to a 2024 report by the Federation of American Scientists, which says the U.S. has 5,044.