Pentagon sees no signs that Russia prepares to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine

Russia has been using a number of delivery systems of missiles that [can] also come with a nuclear warhead. So these are dual capable systems. For example, Iskander M short range ballistic missiles. Those have been used extensively in this war by Russia. So when we have an incoming from Russia to Ukraine and we see that it's an Iskander missile, we don't know if it's nuclear tipped or conventionally tipped,

Budjeryn said

He keeps playing and pretending like he's going to do something,

Ustinova said

The previous version of the Russian doctrine adopted in 2020 allowed also a nuclear response to a large-scale conventional attack, but only in extreme circumstances where the very survival of the state was at stake,

Budjeryn noted

This is the latest instance of a long string of nuclear rhetoric and signaling that has been coming out of Moscow since the beginning of this full scale invasion,

Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate at Harvard's Belfer Center, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle when the change to Russia's nuclear doctrine was first proposed last month

Dmitry Peskovkremlin spokesman

We have a special secure line for communication between the two presidents, Russia and the United States,

Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency

They've been signalling that they intend to update [the Russian nuclear doctrine] over the last several weeks. It's the same irresponsible rhetoric that we've seen before and that we've seen frankly for the past two years. So, it's something that we're going to continue to monitor. But we don't have any indications that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon within Ukraine. And we don't see any changes that need to be made to our own nuclear posture as well."

Quote from Singh

This is more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia, which we have seen for the past two years,

a spokesperson for the US National Security Council told AFP

[Putin] has issued so many red lines that the latest change almost sounds like a desperate cry for attention,

wrote Hans Kristensen of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists

This is how nuclear deterrence works,

Podvig told The Moscow Times

If it comes to using nuclear weapons, no one will recall any doctrine. Putin will not ask for what the doctrine allows and what it doesn’t. Any commanders who would get the orders will not doubt them and will rush to execute,

he said

Put simply, Peskov openly admits that the Kremlin is currently considering the possibility of a nuclear strike,

she said

As we said earlier this month, we were not surprised by Russia’s announcement that it would update its nuclear doctrine; Russia had been signaling its intent to update its doctrine for several weeks,

the White House National Security Council told Reuters in a statement

Many of the best targets – helicopters and glide-bomb armed aircraft attacking Ukrainian cities and troops in the north or in Kursk have largely moved to airbases outside the range of ATACMS

Matthew Savill, the Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, said of Ukraine's ATACMS attacks

The big picture is that Russia is lowering the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a possible conventional attack,

said Alexander Graef, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg

Sergei Ryabkovrussian Deputy Foreign Minister

Now the danger of a direct armed clash between nuclear powers cannot be underestimated, what is happening has no analogues in the past, we are moving through unexplored military and political territory,

said Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister overseeing arms control and US relations

The move is widely seen as a response to US and UK deliberations as to whether to allow Ukraine to fire conventional Western missiles into Russia,

wrote the nuclear security expert Sitara Noor for the Lowy Institute in response to the September proposal

Dmitry Peskovkremlin spokesman

Yes, this is what is being discussed."

Asked about this on Tuesday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, told reporters

Now the Russian leadership is ramping up its rhetoric in an attempt to stop the West from allowing Ukraine to fire NATO missiles into internationally recognized Russian territory,

he added

The destruction of ammunition depots will continue for the army of the Russian occupiers in order to stop the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,

the Ukrainian military said on the Telegram messaging app

Ukraine will never submit to the occupiers, and the Russian military will be punished for violating international law,

the foreign ministry said in a statement