Putin won’t stop using spectre of nuclear disaster to terrorise Ukraine

Ukraine’s President Zelensky has warned of a possible attack on Europe’s largest nuclear plant, while Russia’s president has once again talked up his nuclear arsenal, writes Borzou Daragahi

Vladimir Putin has been talking up Russia’s nuclear arsenal, present and future (Sputnik/Yegor Aleev via Reuters)

The warning from Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky that his intelligence services believe Moscow is plotting a “terrorist act” to release radiation from the power plant in Zaporizhzhia is anothe chilling reminder of the spectre of nuclear disaster that has been a constant throughout Russia’s invasion.

The Kremlin has denied the accusation, but it has repeatedly used nuclear rhetoric particularly threats over the use of nuclear weapons. President Vladimir Putin talked up its arsenal during a speech this week, potentially prompting the Ukrainian response. It is part of what many analysts see as an attempt to try and show the West that Russia will not be backed into a corner, no matter the battlefield situation in Ukraine, particularly ahead of the annual Nato summit in Lithuania next month.

“It might all just be to impose political pressure on Nato leaders ahead of the Nato summit,” says Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist and researcher. “The aim is to weaken the West’s resolve in supporting Ukraine, and to scare the people in Nato countries, to get them to say: ‘You see what is happening? Putin escalates. We cannot support Ukraine.’

Russia this week also unveiled plans to equip its armed forces with new nuclear weapon while also advancing plans to deploy short-range. tactical nuclear weaponry in Belarus, the first time Russia is placing such weapons beyond its borders since the Cold War.

On Wednesday, Putin suggesting that Moscow’s new generation Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads, would soon be deployed for combat duty.

The weapons, given the ominous “Satan II” moniker by some, are supposed to be part of a new Russian arsenal of weapons that Moscow claims will be the envy of the world. In a speech to new graduates of military academies, Putin stressed the importance of Russia's “triad” of nuclear forces that can be launched from land, sea or air.

Putin called Russia’s vast nuclear capabilities “a key guarantee of Russia's military security and global stability” and said the nation’s armed forces were being equipped with the lastest and fastest nuclear technology, including hypersoic warheads.

The first Sarmat launchers will be put on combat duty “in the near future”, Putin said.

The new Sarmat missile is designed to carry out nuclear strikes on targets thousands of missiles away in the United States or Europe. But its deployment has proceeded slower than planned, as Russia said in April 2022 that it would be in place by autumn of that year.

Joe Biden in California, where he spoke about the nuclear threat from Russia (AP)

The remarks come after US President Joe Biden that there is a “real” danger that Russia could use nuclear weapons over the war in Ukraine, with Russia potentially sending tactical nuclear weapons to its neighbour Belarus.

“I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real,” Mr Biden told Democratic Party donors in California this week. Although Putin has suggested there is no need yet for Russia to resort to such weapons and there has been no sense from Ukraine that such weapons have been deployed there.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's military intelligence chief – Kyrylo Budanov – also accused Russia of “mining” the cooling pond used to keep the reactors cool at the Zaporizhzhia plant, a couple of days before Zelensky’s latest warning. The cool pond is fed by the reservoir that used to sit behind the dam that collapsed following an explosion earlier this month. The two sides have accused each other of shelling the Russian-controlled plant and its environs, and international efforts to establish a demilitarised zone around the complex have failed so far.

A deployment of tactical missiles to Belarus marks the first time Russia placed a from its vast arsenal of ageing nuclear weapons beyond its own borders since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. It would allow Russia to further menace not just Ukraine to the south but also the Baltic states, including new Nato member Finland, to the north, and Poland, an increasingly vocal and active backer of Kyiv, to the West.

But experts say that so far claims by Putin and his client in Minsk that Russian tactical nuclear weapons have actually been positioned on Belarusian soil already do not stand up to scrutiny. Belarus activist networks and open-source intelligence experts have said they have not spotted telltale signs that would indicate the deployment of sensitive nuclear weapons across borders.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Reuters)

Those include upgrading of railway lines or the movement of specialised Russian troops tasked with ordinary guarding sensitive sites from their base near Moscow to Belarus, says William Alberque, a former director of Nato’s arms control centre and a nonproliferation expert at the International Institute for Security Studies.

“There appears to be work going on in a couple of places that suggests they are potentially preparing storage for nuclear weapons but we have not seen all the work they would have to do to prepare for nuclear weapons,” he says.

Russia has specialised nuclear weapons containers that could be used to transport warheads by plane discreetly. But Alberque discounted such a move as risky and counter to Russian aims slowly taking control of Belarus’ railway system.

Putin has previously said he wanted the nuclear weapons positioned in Belarus by July. The weapons are older battlefield nuclear warheads likely to be placed atop Russia’s Iskander missiles, with a range of 500km.

Russian officials and state-backed media personalities have repeatedly threatened to resort to their nuclear arsenal in response to battlefield frustrations in Ukraine. Scholar Hanna Notte described a sudden surge in Russian media debates about the use of nuclear weapons in recent days.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko (Sputnik)

Whether the weapons have actually finished being deployed or not, the option is too advantageous for Putin to resist.

For one thing, it allows Russia to strike fear into neighbouring nations.

“It does bring Russian nuclear weapons closer to the region,” says Samuel Ramani, a Russia specialist at the Royal United Services Institute and an occasional adviser to western governments. “It’s a way to put pressure on Baltic states and eastern Europe.”

The Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko may see Russian nuclear weapons as a way to bolster his standing among Western nations that have turned him into a pariah since the 2020 elections, which the international community widely decried as fraudulent.

“He can claim Belarus has its own weapons,” says Lubiakova. “But this would make the entire country a Western target. Once you have foreign troops and foreign nuclear weapons, how do you get rid of them?”

The deployment would also tighten Russia’s grip over Belarus, as it faces a united West who have stood behind Ukraine. Alberque says that Russia would not actually complete deployment of weapons until Moscow has a firmer grasp on Minsk.

“This is about the slow-motion annexation of Belarus by Russia,” says Alberque. “Russia is using this as a way to permanently station Russian troops in Belarus and take control of the railway network. Nuclear weapons solidify the Russian presence.”