Kremlin uses nuclear threats and diplomatic blackmail to control the West - ISW

Kremlin uses nuclear threats and diplomatic blackmail to control the West - ISW

The Kremlin is once again intensifying a campaign of reflexive control aimed at Western decision-making using nuclear threats and diplomatic manipulation.

The Institute for the Study of War ( ISW ) writes about this

Reflexive control is a key element of the Russian hybrid warfare toolkit, military analysts report. This is a tactic that shapes an adversary through targeted rhetoric and information operations so that the adversary will voluntarily take actions that benefit Russia.

Russian officials routinely time nuclear preparedness training and vague threats of nuclear retaliation with major Western policy decisions on the war in Ukraine to pressure Western policymakers to restrain themselves and reduce their support for Ukraine.

The current apparent resurgence of nuclear rhetoric, this time in the form of planned tactical exercises involving nuclear weapons, coincides with the imminent arrival of Western weapons in Ukraine.

Russian officials are likely using the nuclear weapons information operation to discourage Ukraine’s Western partners from providing additional military support and to frighten Western policymakers into preventing Ukrainian forces from using Western-provided systems to attack legitimate military targets in Russia.

Russian forces are conducting planned nuclear exercises as part of this broader information operation on nuclear rhetoric, but ISW continues to assess that Russia is extremely unlikely to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine or elsewhere.

Russia frequently used nuclear saber-rattling during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine to pressure the West to stop providing military support to Ukraine.