Alexander Taranov
On September 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Permanent Conference of the Security Council on Nuclear Deterrence, updating the country’s nuclear policy (Kremlin.ru, September 25; see EDM, September 30). The updated Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence expanded the category of states and military alliances against which a nuclear response could be conducted. The timing of these updates coincides with debates in the West over whether to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons against targets on Russian territory and is likely a tactic to deter this authorization.
On the one hand, Russia mirrored the wording of its doctrinal documents from the 2000s. In particular, the 2000 Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation declared that the country reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies. More to the point, the document suggested that nuclear weapons could be used in response to a large-scale conventional attack in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation (Kremlin.ru, April 21, 2000).
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