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 - January 2024

The self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said that all the planned nuclear weapons from Russia have already been delivered to his country. This happened in early October 2023. This was reported 25 December 2023 by the Belarusian publication Zerkalo. Alexander Lukashenko took part in the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union on December 25 in St. Petersburg. There h commented on the question of whether all planned Russian nuclear weapons had been delivered to Belarus. “For a long time. I already said when the delivery ended. Back in September, in my opinion, or in October. At the beginning of October, the last one. Everything is in its place in good condition,” said the Belarusian leader.

On 18 January 2024 Russia’s top diplomat rejected a United States proposal to resume a dialogue on nuclear arms control, saying that it is impossible while Washington offers military support to Ukraine. Speaking at a news conference, Sergey Lavrov accused the West of fuelling global security risks by encouraging Ukraine to ramp up strikes on Russian territory and warned that Moscow will achieve its goals in the conflict regardless of Western support for Kyiv.

Commenting on a US proposal to resume contacts in the sphere of nuclear arms control, Lavrov said that Moscow has rejected the offer. He said that for such talks to be held, Washington first needs to revise its current policy towards Russia. Lavrov charged that Washington’s push for the revival of nuclear talks has been driven by a desire to resume inspections of Russia’s nuclear weapons sites. He described such US demands as “indecent” in view of Ukraine’s attacks on Russian nuclear-capable bomber bases during the conflict.

“Amid a ‘hybrid war’ waged by Washington against Russia, we aren’t seeing any basis, not only for any additional joint measures in the sphere of arms control and reduction of strategic risks, but for any discussion of strategic stability issues with the US,” he said. “We firmly link such possibility to the West fully renouncing its malicious course aimed at undermining Russia’s security and interests.” The minister said Washington’s push for restarting nuclear arms talks is rooted in a desire to “try to establish control over our nuclear arsenal and minimise nuclear risks for itself” but added that “those risks are emerging as a result of forceful pressure on our country.”

"In real life, the United States opted to pursue military dominance long ago, trying to gain a free hand by dismantling the entire arms control framework in a step-by-step process, including the Treaty Between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, and the Treaty on Open Skies. The same happened to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and the New START since the United States made their implementation impossible.

"Let me remind you that it was the United States who suspended our bilateral strategic dialogue by using an unfavourable military and political environment as a pretext. They cancelled a round of talks in the autumn of 2022 though we were ready to hold it.

"They have recently become aware once again of the importance of nuclear arms control and started sending us signals, including the paper you mentioned, showing their readiness to resume dialogue on these matters. Interestingly, they suggested taking strategic stability talks out of the general military and political context. Every day brings further evidence that we are operating in a hostile environment, which is unacceptable. They denounce us at every corner and call us an aggressor, demanding that we retreat to the 1991 borders and leave the poor democratic Ukraine alone. They did recognise that they were doing all this, but while doing so, they suggested sitting down and focusing on a specific topic: strategic arms limitations and the strategic dialogue in general.

"There was a time when they raised this topic just for the sake of resuming inspections and being able to visit our nuclear facilities. At the same time, they sent weapons to the Ukrainians, and these weapons targeted our military bases where strategic bombers are deployed. These people simply lack common decency. I am not even talking about treating national interests in a comprehensive manner or understanding what is possible in international talks and what is not. In this case, they failed to observe the most rudimentary decency. This did not come as a surprise to us.

"This makes Russia their enemy and they cast us as an enemy, while showing readiness to discuss whether they can look at our strategic nuclear arsenals, as if it were a separate matter. We understand what they are after. They are trying to use the reciprocity motto in order to be able to control our nuclear arsenals and to minimise nuclear risks arising from their efforts to carry out a strong-arm policy towards us. More and more people in the West have been talking about a possible direct confrontation between nuclear powers. There are fewer and fewer constraining factors or deterrents. The Poles and the British have been seriously discussing training NATO units to enter Ukraine and take over specific positions. We are hearing this from people who serve in official positions.

"We believe that the ideas put forward by the United States are unacceptable. When discussing strategic stability, the Americans do not hide that they wanted to leave aside the means of non-nuclear military confrontation, i.e., the non-nuclear forces. Their goal is rather obvious. The collective West enjoys a substantial edge in this regard, quantity-wise, and wants to strengthen it.

"Washington has been waging a hybrid war against Russia. In this context, we do not see any reason not only for taking additional joint measures on arms control or reducing strategic risks, but also for engaging in strategic stability talks with the United States in general.

"We do not reject this idea altogether, just as we do not reject and have never rejected efforts to settle the existing differences by political and diplomatic means. However, before we move forward on these opportunities, we will be firm and unwavering in demanding that the West fully rejects its malicious policy of undermining Russia’s security and our interests and stops openly neglecting our fundamental interests.

"Any future strategic stability discussions would be predicated on the United States demonstrating its readiness to work on this matter considering all the essential strategic stability factors instead of singling out specific aspects according to Washington’s preferences. The Americans have never been inclined to apply this comprehensive approach to strategic stability matters, and we have even fewer reasons to expect this to change in today’s environment."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has never once threatened to use a nuclear bomb, unlike the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said 19 January 2024 at his annual news conference devoted to reviewing Moscow's main foreign policy achievements in 2023. Lavrov was asked whether the situation in the world was going the way of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The minister responded that this topic has recently popped up "on various talk shows and political roundtables."

"I see several players here. If those in charge of policy in the West could each speak out independently, I think the situation would be different, but they are all brought into line. They were brought into line by the Americans, but also to a very large extent by the British. I gave examples about London literally goading Zelensky to bomb any sites in any part of the Russian Federation," he said.

Lavrov also pointed to statements by some former high-ranking US military officials, including Ben Hodges, former commander of the US army in Europe. According to the minister, "they say, 'We have to destroy all conditions for life in Crimea so that there is no Russian fleet there, no one.'"

"This is what they said quite recently," he said. "It would be interesting to poke around in the heads of these people," Lavrov continued. "I would just like to see: Are they rabble rousers, or do they think we will go weak at the knees?" No one has tried to rein them in, Lavrov lamented. "All they say is that Putin is threatening to use a nuclear bomb, even though no such thing has ever been uttered, in contrast to the Europeans or the Americans," he said.

"The Germans said - repeatedly - that Putin should know that we, NATO, also have nuclear weapons. The British used to have a lady prime minister who said: 'I will not hesitate to push the button.' But no one should try to scare us - and many people know that. They should read Churchill more often: He has a quote about the Russian bear and how it should be treated," Lavrov said.

Belarus announced it had adopted a new military doctrine. “The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on Belarus territory is an important component of the preventive deterrence of potential adversaries from unleashing armed aggression against Belarus. This is our forced measure,” Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said on January 20. The draft doctrine outlines Belarus’s stance on the use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) stationed on its territory, considering TNW as a crucial part of preventive deterrence. The leadership believes TNW presence will discourage the shift of military operations to Belarusian territory by Ukraine and NATO if the Russian-Ukrainian conflict escalates.

Lukashenk? signed a decree establishing a protocol for using tactical nuclear weapons carriers, specifically the Iskander-M tactical missile system. This application requires Lukashenk?’s approval, involving the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff. While Russia maintains direct control over nuclear warheads, Belarus retains control over their delivery vehicles. This distribution allows the regime to participate in decisions regarding the use of tactical nuclear weapons, with Lukashenk? specifying that the condition for use is aggression against Belarus. In such instances, tactical nuclear weapons would target command and control centers, critical infrastructure, logistics hubs, and amassed enemy personnel and equipment.

The United States plans to station nuclear weapons in Britain for the first time in 15 years, ostensibly to counter a possible threat from Russia. The British newspaper The Telegraph reports this with reference to Pentagon documents. The nuclear warheads will be stationed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. Their power is three times higher than the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the publication writes.

The disclosure of information occurred against the backdrop of intensifying discussions in the West about a possible conflict with Russia. Thus, on January 18, the head of the NATO military committee, Admiral of the Dutch Navy Rob Bauer, said that the authorities and population of the alliance countries must be prepared for a full-scale clash with Russia, and for this - for a large-scale mobilization of the population and industry in the next 20 years.

Also in January, other foreign media and politicians made similar calls to prepare for a possible military conflict with Russia. In particular, on January 15, the German tabloid Bild, with reference to a “secret document” of the Bundeswehr, wrote that escalation between NATO and Russia could supposedly begin as early as February 2024. Later, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, in an interview with ZDF television, said that the country needs to be prepared to a possible conflict with Russia.

In addition, discussions about a possible interstate military clash were intensified by information about large-scale NATO exercises. The events will take place in Germany, Poland and the Baltic countries. 90,000 military personnel will take part in the exercises. At the same time, on January 23, the organization’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO does not observe any threats from Russia against its allies, but the alliance is still strengthening its presence on the eastern flank.

The next day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the state had no need to attack other countries. At the same time, the Russian authorities previously made statements about the conditions under which nuclear weapons could be used.

Russia’s heavy losses in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine mean that Moscow now sees its battlefield nuclear weapons as increasingly important in deterring and defeating NATO, according to a new report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which warned 24 January 2024 that the West must wake up to the rising nuclear threat.

The IISS report says fear of escalation with Russia has caused the West to hesitate in supplying arms to Kyiv. But nearly two years on, a declassified U.S. intelligence report last month estimated Russia has lost around 315,000 troops in Ukraine since the outset of the invasion, nearly 90% of its pre-war army – much of it at the hands of weapons donated by the West.

“Russia has less confidence now in their conventional capabilities because of everything they’ve lost in the Ukraine war,” said William Alberque, the report author and Director of Strategy, Technology and Arms Control at IISS. That means Moscow’s shorter-range atomic weapons, known Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons or NSNW – designed for use on the battlefield – are becoming increasingly important to the Kremlin, according to Alberque. “Russia has basically short range and medium range, air-launched, ground-launched and sea-launched missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads throughout the theater and able to hold all of NATO at risk. NATO itself lacks sort of a countervailing capability to match the Russian capability.”

Alberque said, “They're constantly thinking about what sort of dosage of nuclear weapons would they need to make us acquiesce, to make us basically sue for peace, without escalating the conflict beyond their control, where we start actually hitting targets deep inside Russia? So, basically, how do they prevent us from striking Moscow? How do they keep the conflict at the theater level?”

“I think that they believe that smaller uses of nuclear weapons could be contained and could be advantageous for Russia. So, this is what we would consider nuclear warfighting to win the battle, to knock out the U.S., to prevent the U.S. from joining in the war by, for instance, preventing us from being able to reinforce from the continental United States,” Alberque told VOA.

Russia believes NATO does not have the resolve to respond with its own nuclear weapons, according to the IISS report, which says it is vital for the West to re-calibrate its own deterrence. “Do we have to introduce the same (NSNW) systems? Or do we take the Russian options off the table through better-integrated air and missile defenses? These are the things that we have to figure out. This is a new dilemma - or a dilemma, I should say, that we've ignored for such a long time,” Alberque said.

The Telegraph newspaper reported, citing Pentagon documents, that the United States plans to deploy nuclear weapons on British soil for the first time in 15 years in response to “the growing threat from Russia.” The newspaper talked about the plan, which may involve the deployment of nuclear weapons at the Lakenheath military base in the British Suffolk air base.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Washington against redeploying tactical nuclear weapons in Britain. Ryabkov told reporters: “Regarding the issue of the supposed return of US tactical nuclear weapons to British territory, I would like to warn in the most specific and firm way against this destabilizing step.” He added: "The security of the United Kingdom and not even the United States will not be enhanced by this step. There is no intimidating effect on us here."

Ryabkov added: “This represents an increase in the general level of escalation and threat in Europe . We assume that despite the rather sad experience, from the point of view of ensuring European security, the hotheads in London and Washington have not learned any lessons from the experience of recent years, so this The scenario is completely plausible.”

According to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Moscow does not pretend to receive any explicit and direct signals from Washington or London in this regard. We have other options to monitor what is happening and draw our own conclusions. He concluded: "We warn NATO, led by the United States, against further escalation, which has become increasingly dangerous."