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 - August 2023

More than half of Russian tactical nuclear weapons that are supposed to be stationed in Belarus have already been delivered and dispersed throughout the country, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on 01 August 2023. The Russian leadership has responded "even to the biggest request from Belarus" by deploying its tactical nuclear warheads in the neighboring country, Lukashenko was quoted as saying by a state-run news agency. "Nuclear weapons are about security … God forbid we have to use this weapon. I still hope that this will not happen … We will ensure our security with the help of our friends," the president told residents of the Kamianets district in the Brest region of Western Belarus.

John Bolton, former national security adviser to the President of the United States under Trump, in an article in The Wall Street Journal, sounded the alarm about the timidity of the Washington administration. The inability of the Armed Forces to succeed in the offensive is a consequence of the US strategy, writes John Bolton in an article for the WSJ. Washington's efforts are aimed only at preventing Moscow on the battlefield, not at leading Kyiv to "victory." "The failure of the Ukrainian offensive and the success of Russian troops on the defensive have one common cause: slow, intermittent deliveries of Western military equipment of a non-strategic nature. The constant debate about whether or not to send this or that weapon system, the eternal fear of an escalation from Russia, which allegedly could start a war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the saber-rattling of nuclear weapons, which the Kremlin periodically engages in, cause paralyzing fear in Western capitals....

"This hesitancy is a product of successful deterrence by the Kremlin, not American strategic necessity," he noted. "Far from being inevitable, the Ukrainians’ inability to achieve major advances is the natural result of a US strategy aimed only at staving off Russian conquest," according to him.

After blaming the West for waging a proxy war on Russia, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu went to Novaya Zemlya Central Test Site 12 August 2023. From 1954 to 1990, the site was used for 132 atmospheric, underground, underwater, surface nuclear weapons tests. Now, Russia says it uses the site for advanced tests of military weapons. In his tour Novaya Zemlya in Russia's far north, Shoigu was joined by Alexey Likhachev, head of the government-owned nuclear power firm Rosatom. Shoigu inspected troops deployed in the region as well as preparations to defend "specially important installations".

Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry issued on 15 August 2023 a press release "on the decisions adopted by Russia, the UK and the United States regarding the de-targeting of strategic nuclear missiles".

"The public debate on the relevance of measures taken since the early 1990s by Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States to de-target their strategic nuclear forces has been picking up lately against the backdrop of a deteriorating international security environment. There have been calls to terminate the corresponding arrangements involving Russia and engage the nuclear deterrence mechanism by targeting the United States and the United Kingdom with Russian missiles....

"As for the question of engaging the nuclear deterrence mechanism, under the document titled Basic Principles of State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence, as approved by Executive Order of the President of Russia No. 355 of June 2, 2020, Russia is continuously involved in nuclear deterrence efforts with respect to specific countries and military coalitions (blocs, alliances), which view the Russian Federation as a potential adversary and possess nuclear weapons and/or other weapons of mass destruction, or considerable conventional military capabilities. Ensuring the combat readiness of the nuclear deterrent at all times is one of the basic principles of nuclear deterrence. Our opponents know all these provisions well.

"Guaranteeing that a potential adversary can be deterred from aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies is one of the top state priorities. At the same time, the national leadership is firmly committed to the principle that nuclear war is unacceptable. We believe that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. This is what President of Russia Vladimir Putin said in his August 1, 2022 address to the participants and guests of the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The leaders of the five nuclear states reaffirmed this message in their January 3, 2022 joint statement. This statement also reiterated the validity of the previous statements on de-targeting. The Russian Federation set forth its principled approaches to these matters in a statement dated November 2, 2022, saying that a nuclear war would be unacceptable.

"Russia takes all the necessary measures to guarantee its national security, territorial integrity and sovereignty, and will continue to do so moving forward."

It is “obvious” that Russia and Belarus could find themselves in a direct conflict with NATO in the future, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin told the International Security Conference in Moscow on 15 August 2023. Khrenin warned that the conflict in Ukraine has morphed into what he called “a global confrontation between the West and the East.” Based on the increase in arms expenditure across the Western world, Khrenin's “conclusion is unambiguous: the possibility of a direct military clash with NATO in the future becomes very obvious.” “It is no coincidence that the Republic of Belarus considers the return of tactical nuclear weapons to its territory as an effective factor of strategic deterrence,” the minister added.

On 17 August 2023, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, warned that he would use the nuclear weapons that Russia had deployed in his country if faced with external aggression. “There can be only one threat – aggression against our country. If aggression against our country starts from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, we will respond instantly with everything we have,” Lukashenko said in an interview.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said 19 August 2023 that possession of nuclear weapons protects Russia from security threats and that Moscow continually reminded the West of the risk of a nuclear conflict. Lavrov’s comments are the latest reference by Russian officials to their country’s nuclear weapons arsenal, a rhetoric of military escalation by Moscow that has gained tempo and frequency since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022. “The possession of nuclear arms is today the only possible response to some of the significant external threats to the security of our country,” Lavrov said in an interview for the state-owned magazine, The International Affairs. Lavrov said that the United States and NATO military alliance members risk ending up in “a situation of direct armed confrontation of nuclear powers. We believe such a development should be prevented. That’s why we have to remind about the existence of high military and political risks and send sobering signals to our opponents,” Lavrov said.

Lawrence Freedman wrote 23 August 2023, "This reluctance to hand over higher-end capabilities has been justified by concerns about provoking Russia into nuclear escalation, although this is no longer seen as pressing a concern as it was last year. Critics argued that the risk was exaggerated and that Russia has already escalated in ways that hurt the Ukrainians. The nuclear risk is obviously not trivial, and it may be that moving carefully and incrementally has allowed possible Russian ‘red lines’ to be passed without major reactions, but one can understand Ukrainian frustration when capabilities start to arrive long after they would have first been useful and while they are routinely suffering attacks on civil society and the economy."

By late August 2023, Ukraine’s forces were fully committed and there are no more reserves to be committed.

Statements in Russia about the use of tactical nuclear weapons to strike a concentration of Ukrainian troops in the de-occupied village of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region sound like “great minds” or big eyes of fear. From a military point of view, such actions do not make any sense. Oleksandr Kovalenko, military and political commentator of the “Information Resistance” group, stated this 29 August 2022, on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel.

This is how he commented on the information that the Russian propagandist Solovyov together with the deputy of “United Russia” Gurulyov began to discuss the possibility of launching a nuclear attack on the concentration of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the village of Robotyne.

“The small village in which they are located, I will not say how much, exactly as much as is needed to keep this village from counterattacks, and basically all the main forces and means are concentrated in the field. I can understand if Soloviev was saying that, because Soloviev is just a talking head, a propagandist who can speak complete nonsense with a very serious face, having developed a Nordic-stoic immovability of facial expressions. On the other hand, Gurulyov, although he is an alconaut, a drunkard, and his departure will most likely be related to cirrhosis, but he is still a general with some experience. In addition, he is not an upstart general, but he has an officer’s heritage. And therefore to carry such nonsense about the task of even a tactical nuclear strike on a small village, where there is a small concentration of forces and means, is complete nonsense,” said Kovalenko.

According to the observer, the very idea of tactical nuclear strikes against the concentration of enemy troops was exhausted in the mid-to-late 1970s. Since it was then that modern (at that time) methods of waging war in small tactical groups were gaining momentum.

“That is, a tactical nuclear strike is needed in order to destroy, for example, a concentration of troops (exclusively figurative) at the level of a division or a battalion-tactical group. To destroy a battalion-tactical group or two, or even three, when it comes to an offensive in some narrow direction, but it is about destroying 800 to 2.5 thousand personnel with a lot of equipment. And in this case, it makes no sense at all to use tactical nuclear weapons,” Oleksandr Kovalenko explained.

Olivia Yanchik, program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, wrote 31 August 2023 "Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin has repeatedly employed nuclear threats to deter countries from arming Ukraine. This extreme tactic has proven highly effective against risk-averse Western leaders, who have deliberately slow-walked the flow of weapons to Ukraine for fear of provoking a nuclear response. Such caution could have grave implications for the future of international security. Unless the West confronts Vladimir Putin’s nuclear intimidation, there is a very real chance that he will continue with such tactics. Inevitably, others will seek to emulate him. This could plunge the entire world into a new era of international instability as countries scramble to secure a nuclear deterrent of their own."