Thomas Kika
A retired Russian military official recently outlined a possible way by which his country could end up engaging in a nuclear conflict with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Russian threats of a potential nuclear conflict with the West have escalated over the course of the country's invasion of Ukraine, which began in late February 2022. Numerous Kremlin officials, military leaders, and media propagandists have strongly suggested that nuclear weapons could be deployed against Western nations, like the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, that continue to provide aid to Ukraine, though experts differ on how serious these threats actually are.
Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin temporarily suspended his country's participation in the joint New START Treaty with the U.S. and in March announced that Moscow would build tactical nuclear weapon storage facilities in Belarus, a country run by close Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko.
On Saturday, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs and a prolific social media commentator, shared a clip of retired Russian colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok appearing on a state-run news program, discussing tensions with nations on the Baltic Sea. He warned Sweden, which has not yet joined NATO but is in the process of trying to do so, against antagonistic behavior towards Russia. He also suggested that tensions in the region could lead to an inevitable nuclear conflict with other NATO members in the region.
Russian nuclear weapons on display in Moscow. A retired Russian colonel recently discussed the possibility of a nuclear conflict between Russia and NATO member nations on the Baltic Sea.
"Nonetheless, this would, in fact, lead to a conflict between the Russian Federation and NATO," Khodaryonok said, as translated by Gerashchenko. "And this conflict can only be nuclear. This is why the inhabitants of Stockholm and Tallinn [Estonia's capital] can be asked, 'Do you need it?' Do you need it? Do you even imagine an underwater nuclear explosion on the roadstead of Tallinn or Stockholm, which will sweep away your city with a wave? Do you even imagine that the entire Baltic Sea could be loaded with our mines?... We might dump so many mines that it would take you 10 years to demine it, if you still had the capacity and means to do so."
Sweden is among the handful of European nations, alongside the likes of Ukraine and Georgia, that NATO recognizes as aspiring members. It has been attempting to join the alliance since earlier this year after being stalled by reservations from Turkey. In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dropped his opposition to Sweden's NATO accession. Finland was officially admitted in April, while other Baltic nations like Poland, Estonia, and Latvia, were admitted between 1999 and 2004. Some experts have said that Sweden joining the alliance would turn the Baltic Sea into a "NATO Lake," severely hampering Russia's ability to operate on it.
Article 5 of the NATO agreement states that member nations will view an attack on one of them as an attack on all and provide the necessary military aid in response. An attack by Russia against one of these members, therefore, could lead to a much broader international conflict.
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