Nuclear risk during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
[3][4] The resulting activity reportedly led to a 20-fold increase of detected radiation levels in the area due to disturbance of contaminated soil.
However, Ukrainian authorities reported that there was a risk of a radiation leak due to spent fuel coolant being unable to circulate properly.
[11] Late in the evening of 27 February 2022,[12][13] three days after the launch of the Russian invasion, President Putin ordered Russia's nuclear forces to go into a "special mode of combat duty", a state of high alert.
[18] The day after Lavrov's comments, CNBC reported that US secretary Lloyd Austin referred to Russia's nuclear war rhetoric as being "dangerous and unhelpful".
[20] Pentagon Press secretary John Kirby called Putin's assertion of nuclear potency contrary to the process of the peaceful resolution of the current conflict in Ukraine.
[22] On 21 September, while announcing a partial mobilization of conscripts, Putin said that Russia "will use all the means at our disposal" – widely interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons – to defend the country’s territory.
[26] Several days later, former Russian president and Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev made a more explicit threat of a nuclear strike against Ukraine.
[29] In response to Kadyrov's comments, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the use of nuclear weapons would be determined by Russian military doctrine and not by emotions.
[33] A tweet by the Russian Ministry of Defence, purportedly showing evidence of a Ukrainian dirty bomb in production, was debunked as a collection of old and unrelated photos.
"[46] In June 2023, Russian political scientist Sergey Karaganov called for the use of nuclear weapons by Russia against NATO member states in Europe, saying that "we will have to hit a bunch of targets in a number of countries in order to bring those who have lost their mind to reason.
"[47] Leaked documents seen by the Financial Times in 2024 described a threshold for the country's use of tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than Russia had previously disclosed.
[48] Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin told the FT: "This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain […] They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.
[59] Two days later, Belarusian President and close ally of Russia Alexander Lukashenko warned that Belarus will use nuclear weapons if attacked by the West.
[62] Two days later Belarusian President Lukashenko confirmed the presence of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, including Russia's Oreshnik missile system.
[63] On 14 April 2022, The New York Times reported comments by CIA director William Burns, who said "potential desperation" could lead President Putin to order the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
[70] On 1 July, during a visit by Lavrov to Belarus, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko indicated support for Moscow to use nuclear weapons against the broad threats of Western hegemony over Russia and its allies demonstrated during the conflict in Ukraine.
[71] On 13 August, in an interview with the BBC, Jim Hockenhull, the outgoing head of UK Military Intelligence, said he considered the possibility of Russia imminently using nuclear weapons to be "unlikely".
[80] On 6 October 2022, during a speech at a private fundraiser in New York City, Biden said that for the "[f]irst time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of the nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they've been going...
[87] In an interview with the BBC on 11 October 2022, GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming said the agency had seen no indications that Russia was preparing for the use of a tactical nuclear weapon.
"[96][97] In April 2022, American political activist Daniel Ellsberg compared Vladimir Putin's nuclear threats to Richard Nixon’s self-proclaimed "madman strategy".
[98] Eric Schlosser, writing for The Atlantic magazine on 22 June 2022, stated that the nuclear saber-rattling by Russia during the invasion appeared to suggest the most probable uses of nuclear weapons would be:[99]CSIS military expert Mark Cancian suggested the possibility of detonating high in the atmosphere to produce an electromagnetic pulse and knock out electronic equipment.
[100] On 7 September, The Washington Post reported that the Russian high military command had published an analysis saying that tactical nuclear arms remained a viable option for use against Ukraine, quoting Ukrainian commander in chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi as stating: "There is a direct threat of the use, under certain circumstances, of tactical nuclear weapons by the Russian Armed Forces...
[103][104] In a 2 October 2022 analysis, The Jerusalem Post stated "Most experts do not think that Russian President Vladimir Putin will actually use nuclear weapons in Ukraine at the end of the day, but the number of those who think he will or might is growing."
In January 2023, Graham Allison, writing for Time, presented a seven-point summary of Putin's hypothetical intention to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
[115] An anonymous U.S. official said the United States "is concerned about Ukraine’s recent strikes against Russian ballistic missile early-warning sites.
