At the battle of Stirling Bridge, 11 September 1297, the movie Braveheart has William Wallace provoking the English to battle, saying "Here are Scotland's terms. Lower your flags, and march straight back to England, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for 100 years of theft, rape, and murder. Do that and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today. ... Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own ass."

Putin's Nuclear Crisis - June 2023

In mid-June, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that even discussing of the issue lowers the threshold for a potential nuclear arms use. Under the current official doctrine, Russia will only utilize its atomic arsenal if faced with an existential threat, the president said at that time, adding that he also did not believe in using tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

The issue of a potential nuclear strike came into the spotlight in Russia after political scientist Sergey Karaganov raised such a possibility in an opinion piece. In the article titled ‘A Difficult But Necessary Decision’, Karaganov argued that Russia could escalate to using nuclear weapons against European countries supporting Ukraine, in order to force the US and its allies to back off from a wider conflict with Russia and thus prevent a global nuclear war and World War 3.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said US-built F-16 fighter jets can “accommodate” nuclear weapons and warned that supplying Kyiv with them will escalate the conflict. “We must keep in mind that one of the modifications of the F-16 can accommodate nuclear weapons,” Lavrov said in a speech at a military base in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 05 June 2023. “If they do not understand this, then they are worthless as military strategists and planners.”

White House spokesman John Kirby on 06 June 2023 declined to discuss the nuclear capabilities of the F-16 fighters but noted that US President Joe Biden has been consistent that he does not want to see the war escalate, certainly not into the nuclear realm. "The purpose of providing advanced fighter aircraft is to help Ukraine defend itself defend its airspace and its territorial integrity period," Kirby said.

"MR. KIRBY: The first thing I would say to Minister Lavrov is: If you’re worried about Ukrainian military capabilities, then you should take your troops and leave Ukraine. Number two, these F-16s are going to be provided as a part of long-term defense needs for Ukraine. We’ve been very, very open and transparent about that. It’ll take some time for those jets to get there. We’re going to start with a training program for Ukrainian pilots, and that hasn’t started yet. And it really is about helping Ukraine with its self-defense needs.

MR. KIRBY: I’m not going to talk about the nuclear capabilities of any platform in the American arsenal. The purpose of providing advanced fighter aircraft is to help Ukraine defend itself, defend its — its airspace and its territorial integrity. Period. And there’s no interest by the United States in escalating this conflict, certainly not into the nuclear realm.""

The supply of nuclear weapons by Western countries to Kyiv, if they even go so far, will lead to "the end of everything." This was stated on 07 June 2023 at a briefing by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova. Answering the question whether the Russian side admits that the West can go as far as supplying Kyiv with weapons with nuclear charges, Zakharova noted that "one can talk a lot theoretically" on this matter.

"If someone in the West wants to turn off everything on this planet - both the light and, in principle, existence - then they will probably start supplying nuclear weapons to the Kiev regime. But then this is the end of everything. You just need to admit it right away," the diplomat said. At the same time, the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that if the "logic of self-preservation" is still present in the West, then such a development of events is unlikely.

It is necessary to carry out the demilitarization of Ukraine because it poses a threat both to Russia and to the countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) as a whole, including from the point of view of the use of nuclear weapons, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev said at a meeting of the Committee of Secretaries Security Council of the CSTO 08 June 2023.

"The need for demilitarization is also caused by the fact that Ukraine, saturated with weapons, poses a threat to Russia and to the CSTO as a whole, including from the point of view of the development and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons," said Patrushev, quoted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

He also noted that "the special military operation has specific goals, the achievement of which depends not only on the well-being, but on the lives of millions of people, saving the population of the LPR and DPR from the genocide that was perpetrated by Ukrainian neo-Nazis for eight years." "Our goal is to destroy the foothold of neo-Nazism created by the efforts of the West near the Russian borders," Patrushev added.

The Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation pointed out that "with the assistance of Western countries, the Ukrainian leadership used eight years to prepare a military operation against the inhabitants of Donbass." "At one time, Hitler's fascism dreamed of destroying the entire Russian population, and today its followers, according to Hitler's precepts, are blasphemously trying to do it with the hands of the Slavs. Russia will not let this happen," he stressed.

The deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus will begin as soon as adaptation work at the relevant storage facilities is completed, around the first week of July, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart on 09 June 2023. “Everything is going according to plan,” Putin told President Alexander Lukashenko, adding that on July 7-8 “the preparation of the relevant facilities will be completed and we will immediately begin measures related to the deployment of the relevant types of weapons on your territory.”

Sergey Karaganov, Doctor of History, Professor, Academic Supervisor of the Faculty of World Economy and World Politics, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, wrote 13 June 2023:

"The United States has turned Ukraine into a shock fist in order to use it to tie the hands of Russia, the military-political core of the non-Western world liberated from the shackles of neo-colonialism.... the Western elites began to actively feed the weeds that had broken through on the soil of seventy years of prosperity, satiety and peace - all these anti-human ideologies: denial of the family, homeland, history, love between a man and a woman...

"The situation is aggravated by "strategic parasitism" - for 75 years of relative peace, people have forgotten the horrors of war, they have ceased to be afraid even of nuclear weapons.... The appearance of nuclear weapons is the result of the intervention of the Almighty, who was horrified when he saw that people, Europeans and the Japanese who joined them, unleashed two world wars over the course of one generation, which claimed tens of millions of lives, and handed over to humanity the weapon of Armageddon, showed those who had lost their fear of hell that he exists. On this fear rested the relative peace of the last three-quarters of a century. Now that fear is gone....

"The fear of nuclear escalation must be restored. Otherwise humanity is doomed.... By breaking the will of the West to aggression, we will not only save ourselves, finally free the world from the Western yoke that has lasted five centuries, but we will also save all of humanity....

"We can fight for another year or two or three, sacrificing thousands and thousands of our best men and grinding tens and hundreds of thousands of people who fell into a tragic historical trap of the inhabitants of the territory that is now called Ukraine. But this military operation cannot end with a decisive victory without imposing a strategic retreat or even capitulation on the West. We must force the West to give up trying to turn back history, give up its attempts at global dominance...

"We will have to restore the credibility of nuclear deterrence by lowering the unacceptably high threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, prudently but quickly moving up the deterrence-escalation ladder... There are many steps on this staircase. I counted two dozen. Things can even go so far as to warn compatriots and all people of good will about the need to leave their places of residence near objects that could become targets of nuclear strikes in countries providing direct support to the Kyiv regime. The enemy must know that we are ready to strike a preemptive retaliatory strike for all of his current and past aggressions to prevent a slide into a global thermonuclear war....

"I have said and written many times that if we build a strategy of deterrence and even use correctly, the risk of a “retaliatory” nuclear strike, and indeed any other strike on our territory, can be minimized...

"But in the end, the winners are not judged."

Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus in “several days”, said President Alexander Lukashenko, according to Belarusian state media. Lukashenko said on 13 June 2023 that Minsk was ready to host the arms, days after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the weapons would be deployed July 7-8. “Everything is ready. I think we will have what we asked for in a few days, and even a little bit more,” he said in comments cited by the Belta news agency.

Lukashenko warned he would not hesitate to use the weapons in response to potential aggressors. “Why do we need them? To make sure not a single foreign soldier sets their foot on the Belarusian land again,” he said. “God forbid that I have to make a decision to use these weapons. But there will be no hesitation in the event of an aggression against us.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said 13 June 2023 his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. "We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia," Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel which was posted on the Belarusian Belta state news agency's Telegram channel. "The bombs are three times more powerful than those (dropped on) Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said.

Putin confirmed 16 June 2023 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) that Russia had sent nuclear arms to its ally Belarus which borders Ukraine. “The first nuclear warheads were delivered to the territory of Belarus … This is the first part,” Putin told an annual economic forum, where AFP and media of other countries Russia deems “unfriendly” were not accredited. The Russian leader had announced the plans to send tactical nuclear weapons – less powerful than strategic ones – in March. “By the end of summer, the end of the year, we will complete the process,” of transferring tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, Putin said.

Russia has a large number of nuclear weapons and will not reduce their stocks, despite the desire of NATO, President Vladimir Putin said at the SPIEF plenary meeting. “We have more such weapons than the NATO countries. They know about it and all the time they persuade us to start negotiations on reduction – fuck them, you know, as our people say,” the head of state said.

Russia, contrary to forecasts, is not going to use nuclear weapons. “Everyone is waiting for us to start pushing buttons, but we will not do this,” the president stressed. He mentioned the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus. “This is like an element of deterrence. So that everyone who is thinking about inflicting a strategic defeat on us should not forget about this circumstance,” he said.

“There is no such need, because the enemy on the front line is not successful. And, realizing that success is unlikely, we are provoked to some tough actions in the hope of later pointing a finger and saying: well, look how vicious they are, how cruel , and they cannot be dealt with, and all our partners should be pointed out to this," Putin explained. At the same time, he recalled that Russia can use WMD if a threat is created to "the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of the existence of the state."

Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, noted that it was no coincidence that Putin was asked about the possibility of a nuclear strike. Soon another NATO summit will be held in Vilnius, the results of which could seriously affect Russia's security. According to the expert, on the one hand, Putin refused to delve into the topic of the use of Doomsday weapons, and on the other hand, he mentioned that his first batch had already been sent to Belarus. "Against the backdrop of growing geopolitical uncertainty in Russia, it is important to have the potential for a retaliatory strike," RIA Novosti's interlocutor emphasized.

The White House denounced comments from Putin on the possible use of nuclear weapons, but said the United States had made no adjustments to its nuclear posture in response to the rhetoric. The White House comments came after Putin said that Russia could “theoretically” use nuclear weapons if there was a threat to its territorial integrity or existence, but that it did not need to. Responding to questions on board Air Force One, White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton also reaffirmed the US commitment to NATO’s principle of collective defence.

Ilya Fabrichnikov, member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and a communications advisor, noted a "verbal escalation from the West that has not yet been matched by a symmetrical response from Russian officials. So far, this verbal escalation has been an informational confrontation aimed at probing a purely psychological reaction from the main decision-maker on the use of nuclear weapons – President Vladimir Putin. There are no other individuals in the country with responsibility for the use of strategic weapons – they are not provided for in the Constitution, relevant regulations or presidential decrees....

"In reality, this is all part of an information campaign in the Western European and – to some extent – American media that had gained considerable momentum by the middle of last year. Western commentators actively and imperatively speculated about when, not if, Russia would finally use its tactical nuclear capability against Kiev. In doing so, they were actively urging Moscow to break the taboo of proactive nuclear use....

"Paradoxical as it may seem, the NATO states are now demonstrably proactive in the delicate and error-prone business of escalation. And Russia's foreign policy leadership seems to have reacted belatedly to these initiatives. In fact, the Western bloc’s demonstrative restlessness only confirms the loss of initiative, and haste always leads to dramatic miscalculations. "

Russia declared a demarche in the UN Security Council's "nuclear five" expert group in connection with the possibility of F-16 aircraft being prepared for transfer to Ukraine to carry nuclear weapons. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an interview with RT 16 June 2023. “Now we are talking about F-16 aircraft, which, indeed, can be equipped to carry nuclear weapons. We said this publicly. And within the framework of the five permanent members of the Security Council <...> - the “nuclear five” is called experts meet periodically - we made a very serious demarche there," the minister said. Lavrov said that Russia is ready to give a military-technical response if F-16 fighters appear in the sky over Ukraine. "Of course, there will be <...> a military-technical response," he said, answering a relevant question.

The US House proposal for the defense spending bill for 2024 requests $80 million for Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), the legislation stated on 16 June 2023. "Of the funds authorized for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative elsewhere in this Act, the committee intends that not less than $80.0 million be used for the procurement of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) for the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the legislation stated. The legislation requests that the Pentagon provide an update on the procurement and availability of ATACMS for Ukraine by December 31, the measure stated.

Dmitry Trenin, a research professor at the Higher School of Economics and a lead research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, wrote 20 June 2023: "Russians believe that there are two things that Americans and West Europeans are really afraid to countenance. One, mainly as far as the latter are concerned, is a direct collision with Moscow's army, which would turn the Ukraine conflict into a full-blown Russia-NATO war. Given the disparities of power, such a war is unlikely to stay conventional for long, leading the Kremlin to reach for the nuclear option that its doctrine provides for in this case. Two, particularly for the Americans, is the possibility of a European war provoking a Russia-US nuclear exchange that would destroy the world.

"Effective deterrence usually combines certainties with uncertainties. The certainty of an adversary’s capability to pose an unacceptable threat, and the uncertainty as to the exact measures that it would take if provoked. The US strategy vis-à-vis Russia in Ukraine has been that of pushing the envelope farther and farther, by upgrading step by step its military support for Ukraine and probing Russian reaction to each stage of escalation. So far, it seems for Washington, so good. Beyond a certain point, however, such practice may turn this calculated strategy into Russian roulette. The proposed arrival of the F-16s and the potential delivery of longer-range missiles would bring the situation closer to that point. Hence, Putin’s confirmation that the nuclear option, while unnecessary at this stage, is not off the table. Indeed, no nuclear power would likely agree to be defeated by another without exercising the ultimate option."

President Joe Biden claimed there was a “real” threat that Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, soon after the Kremlin announced that it had stationed some of its arsenal on the territory of its closest ally. Speaking to a group of donors in California on 20 June 2023, Biden suggested that Russia’s moves in Belarus could be a sign that it is preparing to use its smaller-yield tactical nukes, despite recent comments from the White House acknowledging no “imminent indication” of any such attack.

“When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” he said, adding “They looked at me like when I said I worry about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It's real.” The statement came after the president slammed Russia’s deployments as “totally irresponsible” over the weekend. He previously told reporters he felt “extremely negative” about the decision.

Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin called irresponsible the statements sometimes made in Russia about the possibility of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. "When I hear some people, non-officials, but only analysts or political scientists, in all seriousness discuss the use of any nuclear weapon, I think it's irresponsible," the diplomat said in an interview broadcast on Sky News on 21 June 2023. His comment in English was an answer to the question why Russian TV screens are threatening to destroy the British Isles, including with the use of nuclear weapons.

"The problem is that the UK has very often started calling Russia a threat, the biggest threat, an immediate threat in all official documents. Of course, this provokes a reaction from the other side. People in Russia carefully read British newspapers, British political studies," the ambassador said. “Russia is not a threat to the UK, we had very good cooperation in the 1990s, early 2000s. Then, for some reason unknown to me, the UK began to believe that we were a threat,” Kelin added.

Speaking about the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kelin said that the Russian military doctrine clearly spells out under what circumstances Moscow will be forced to use it. "[Use] is possible only when there is a threat to the existence of the entire country or when we are attacked with nuclear weapons," the ambassador said.

A resolution calling to equate Russia's allegedly possible use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) in Ukraine with an attack on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been prepared in the US Senate. This was announced on 22 June 2023 at a press conference by one of the authors of the document - Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, from South Carolina). "We are introducing a resolution today, a Senate resolution, that says that if Russia or Belarus or a Russian proxy blows up a nuclear device in Ukraine to stop a counter-offensive or try to break the will of the Ukrainian people, then such an attack should be considered an attack on NATO itself." the legislator said. At the same time, he quoted US President Joe Biden, who recently argued that the threat of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons is real. Together with Graham, the non-binding resolution was drafted by Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut).

One Russian commented [26 June 2023] "The Americans reacted quite calmly to the advancement of our nuclear systems on the territory of Belarus . It is obvious to me that the doctrinal provisions regarding the use of nuclear weapons, which were formulated before the start of the Ukrainian conflict, need to be understood and, possibly, adjusted. Because we are facing the threat that we will be constantly tested, provoked by various strikes on the Crimea and other regions of Russia, strikes on Moscow, without expecting anything serious from us in return. And the more this dynamic develops, the more dangerous the situation will become.... they do not believe that Russia will be able to give a serious response with conventional weapons, and that Moscow does not have the courage to use nuclear weapons.... no nuclear power would agree to be strategically defeated by another nuclear power without at least resorting to the threat of using nuclear weapons."

The absolute majority of people in Russia oppose the idea of Moscow using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in the ongoing conflict, according to a fresh poll conducted by the media outlet RTVI and the Russian Field polling agency. Almost three quarters of respondents (74%) said that a nuclear option is “unacceptable” regardless of the situation on the battlefield, RTVI reported on 28 June 2023.

Only 10% of Russians said the use of nuclear weapons was “acceptable” at any moment, while another 5% said such a step could only be made in the face of a real risk of defeat. Some five percent of respondents provided no clear answer to this question. Men, middle-aged and older Russians appeared to be more supportive of a nuclear option, according to the survey. Respondents with higher education and those perceiving the ongoing conflict as a potential threat to their personal security tend to oppose it.

Meanwhile, a majority of Russians expressed their readiness to aid the Russian forces fighting on the frontlines. According to the survey, 61% of respondents said they were ready to do so and almost 40% told the surveyors they had already provided some aid to the military at least once, through various aid and support programs. Almost 30% also collected clothes and various useful items for the soldiers.

No one wants to start a nuclear conflict, but Washington has destroyed the entire deterrence and strategic stability system, which was created to mitigate risks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Russian TV 28 June 2023. "It is a medical fact that they have destroyed the entire international legal system of deterrence and strategic stability. It’s a good thing they do not want a nuclear war, no one wants it. And the system of agreements, which has been destroyed by the United States, exists specifically to reduce its risk and to make this risk negligible at all," he said.