‘Russia doesn’t want to use nuclear weapons’: The view from wartime Moscow

Russia, which holds the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads, has unveiled its new nuclear doctrine, lowering its threshold for nuclear engagement while continuing its invasion of Ukraine.

But as panic sets in across some Western nations, Russian experts say Moscow does not want to tap into its arsenal.

The revised rules, outlined by President Vladimir Putin, say that an attack on Russia with “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation”, seemingly responding to the possibility that Ukraine could strike targets deep within Russian territory using long-range weapons supplied by Western allies.

The United States, Ukraine’s most important ally, is the world’s second-largest nuclear power, with 5,224 warheads compared to Russia’s 5,889.

Alexey Malinin, the Moscow-based founder of the Center for International Interaction and Cooperation, told Al Jazeera that from the Russian perspective, a reassessment of nuclear capabilities was necessary in the face of encirclement by hostile powers.

“Russia does not want to use nuclear weapons, understanding the seriousness of the consequences of a conflict with the use of such weapons,” he said.

“However, at present, our country is forced to respond to the growing threats directed against us. The West continues to pump Ukraine with weapons, including F-16 fighters and long-range missiles like [US-made] ATACMS. Moreover, NATO is developing its infrastructure around the borders of Russia: new units are being created in Finland.”

He claimed that although Russia is trying to avoid the use of nuclear weapons, Moscow is “forced to demonstrate” that it is ready to defend “integrity and sovereignty” by any possible means”.

However, Kremlin critics worry that Putin is pushing closer towards, if not a nuclear apocalypse, then at least a regional humanitarian disaster.

“The USSR said that it would never strike first … Now Putin says that he will strike whenever he wants,” exiled politician Leonid Gozman wrote in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

“He obviously doesn’t have that moral barrier to using nuclear weapons, that understanding that it’s a step toward destroying the planet that both [Soviet leaders Nikita] Khrushchev and [Leonid] Brezhnev had.

“He certainly doesn’t care how many Ukrainians will die, and how many of them and his own soldiers will die from radiation sickness later, either.”

During the Cold War, both Washington and Moscow operated on the principle of mutually assured destruction, the understanding that a nuclear strike from one side would prompt a response in kind, leading to an all-out atomic altercation and mass devastation on a global scale.

However, Putin is warning that Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to a “critical threat to our sovereignty” – referring to not necessarily a nuclear assault, but also a conventional one.

Alexandra, an everyday Russian in Moscow who works as an architect, told Al Jazeera: “I’m scared, but I don’t understand much of what’s going on.”

The Russian government and its supporters believe they are sending a strong signal to Ukraine’s Western allies, warning against interfering in the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned the UN that should the West allow Ukraine to strike further into Russia, it will be dragging itself into a “suicidal escapade”.

“Whether or not they will provide the permission for Ukraine for long-range weapons, then we will see what their understanding was of what they heard,” he said recently.

Washington has recently greenlit additional aid for Ukraine, but permission to use US-supplied weapons does not yet go beyond what was previously agreed.

Writing on Telegram, the hawkish former President Dmitry Medvedev stated the new doctrine “could cool the passions of those opponents who have not yet lost their sense of self-preservation.”

“But for the dim-witted, there will only be the Roman maxim: caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare [thunder from the sky reminds all that Jupiter reigns],” he added.

“This is a reason to think not only for the rotten neo-Nazi regime [in Kyiv], but also for all of Russia’s enemies who are pushing the world towards a nuclear catastrophe,” he said, sticking to the Kremlin’s widely condemned narrative that the administration of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a far-right force.