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‘Will the Russian Federation make use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Why or why not?’
The purpose of this article will be to articulate why there is reason to believe that it is highly
likely that the Russian Federation will make use of nuclear force in the conflict in Ukraine.
There are a multitude of factors that lead to this conclusion; Russia’s apparent
underperformance in conducting their offensive campaigns, and the need to rejuvenate the
threat of deterrence posed by Russia through its nuclear arsenal which has recently been
taken increasingly less seriously by the West, due to Moscow’s ever-frequent nuclear
sabre-rattling, amongst other factors. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have
somewhat struggled in trying to successfully achieve their military objectives: be it seizing
Kiev, the assassination and replacement of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or the
demilitarisation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Along with this, the President of Russia,
Vladimir Putin, is facing increasing pressure from Russian nationalist groups due to the
wartime failures and the duration of the war, which increases the likelihood multifold that
Putin uses a nuclear asset to end the war with haste and that too, on Russia’s terms. If recent
history has proved anything, it is that Russia’s status as a great power and its ability to exert
dominance is more important to its rulers than the actual sustainability of the cost required to
do so therein.
Initial Expectations From the Military Intervention;
The Russian Armed Forces at the onset of the intervention in 2022, were predicted both by
Russian and Western forces, to completely trounce all Ukrainian resistance and it was even
projected that Kiev could fall within 72 hours of the operation, as per Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff of the U.S.A, General Mark Milley. It was expected that after this, the
Government of Ukraine and the President would either be captured, killed or surrender, thus
constituting a formal collapse of any organised resistance against Russia’s military actions
and that Ukraine would soon have a newly-formed Russian-aligned ‘puppet government’ at
its head.
A Harsh Reality;
This was not to be, as the Ukrainian forces and leadership held their own and managed to
keep the Russians mostly at bay, eventually managing to drive them away from the Kiev
Front entirely though losing some other cities in the South and East in the process, after
which President Putin decided to divert his military’s attention to the Donbas in the East,
where it was expected to be easier for the Russians to advance because of their stronger
military position there, but as we come back to present-day, Russia is still facing hardship in
advancing forward, with the increasing casualties from the conflict not boding well for Russia
either. Both Russia and Ukraine are currently bogged down in the East and South, where
Russia attempts to defend against a slow-gruelling Ukrainian counter-offensive, withstanding
Ukrainian attacks, and currently limited active offensive plans or advances in play on the
Eastern and Southern Front, apart from the one heading towards Kupyansk, in the Kharkov
Oblast. All this, coupled with the recent Wagner Group Rebellion from amongst Putin’s own