KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Since the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Moscow has relied on nuclear coercion and compellence to shape Western decision-making. On November 19, 2024, President Vladimir Putin approved amendments to Russia's nuclear doctrine, signaling a lowered threshold for nuclear first use. While the 2024 amendments introduce new details to possible scenarios for Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, they do not constitute a significant departure from previous doctrine.
These changes represent one of Russia’s latest escalatory steps designed to amplify fears of nuclear escalation. On the one hand, Russia has successfully shaped a range of Western decisions regarding the support for Ukraine at critical stages of the war. On the other hand, decision-makers and societies in NATO countries have gradually become less responsive to the Russia's nuclear intimidation. Consequently, the doctrinal amendments are part of a broader set of actions aimed to reinforce what Russia perceives as its weakened deterrence, reputation and coercive power, as Western decision-makers and societies have become increasingly desensitized to Russia's nuclear threats.
As such, the amendments appear primarily designed to expand Russia’s set of coercive options and add greater flexibility to the escalation ladder, thereby enhancing Russia’s ability to influence adversaries’ decision-making, in tandem with a wide array of military and non-military instruments within the framework of the Russian integrated strategic deterrence concept.
As Russia's conventional forces fell into significant decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country increasingly relied on nuclear weapons to ensure deterrence and sustain its claims to great-power status and influence. The significance of nuclear weapons was underscored in “The Basic Principles of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation,”approved in 1993. The document rejected the Soviet Union’s no-first-use pledge, asserting the right to use nuclear weapons if attacked by a non-nuclear state allied with a nuclear power. The importance of nuclear weapons for Russian deterrence was further underscored as the demise of the Russian conventional forces continued throughout the 1990s, exposed with a full force during the two Chechen Wars (1994–1996 and 1999–2000).
As Russia's conventional forces fell into significant decline following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country increasingly relied on nuclear weapons to ensure deterrence.
Military recovery was further undermined by the 1998 global economic crisis that hit Russia particularly hard. Importantly, the economic crisis coincided with NATO’s 1999 air campaign in Kosovo. The alliance’s demonstrated precision-strike capability highlighted Russia’s extensive and growing conventional disparity. Combined with the U.S. emphasis on humanitarian intervention, Moscow feared potential Western interference to halt Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Hence, to bolster its deterrence, Russia conducted the Zapad-1999 exercise — the first large-scale military drills since the collapse of the Soviet Union — which included simulations of nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile strikes against NATO targets.
Approved in 2000, the nuclear first use doctrine stated that should deterrence fail, Russia would use nuclear weapons to end a conflict on conditions favorable to its interest. Scenarios encompassed a nuclear response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destructions against Russia and (or) its allies, as well as in response to large-scale aggression using conventional weapons in situations critical to national security. Likewise, Russia would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states and parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the event of an attack on Russia, its allies or on a state with which Russia has security obligations, carried out or supported by a non-nuclear-weapon state, jointly or in the presence of allied obligations with a nuclear-weapon state.
Russia continued to reserve the right to first use of nuclear weapons in a conventional war also in 2010 and 2014 updates of the military doctrine. However, scenarios depicting the conditions for use were apparently narrowed down from the previous “situations critical to the national security”to“when the very existence of the state is threatened,” a step broadly interpreted as signaling that Russia raised its threshold for nuclear use.
The adjustment was possibly facilitated by the progress of the large-scale modernization of the conventional forces launched in 2008, which led to a strengthening of Russian non-nuclear forces, thus easing its reliance on nuclear capabilities. Long-range precision weapons on cruise and ballistic missiles have played a particularly important role to achieve this objective. Since the 2010s, Russia has accelerated the production and deployment of air, sea and ground launched long-rage precision weapons. While their importance was mentioned in the 2010 miliary doctrine, these weapons were elevated to the strategic level in its 2014 update, as a key element of Russia’s non-nuclear deterrence, defined as “a complex of foreign policy, military and military-technical measures aimed at preventing aggression against the Russian Federation through non-nuclear means.”
Notably, despite claims to the contrary by scholars that overstated Russia’s emphasis on non-nuclear deterrence, the relationship between Russian nuclear and conventional weapons was not governed by a “zero-sum game” logic. As reflected in the strategic deterrence concept incorporated in the 2014 military doctrine, nuclear capabilities have been integrated with non-nuclear ones. In 2017, Russian authorities declared increasing reliance on conventional capabilities, foreseeing a potential shift in the center of gravity from nuclear to non-nuclear deterrence. They expected to achieve “full non-nuclear deterrence” through expanding the number of non-nuclear strategic weapons “four-fold” by 2021.
However, reliance on conventional capabilities has been contingent on the Russian economy being able to produce long-range precision weapons, including hypersonic missiles, in the necessary quantity and at the necessary pace. To date, Russia has fallen short of achieving full nuclear deterrence, despite ramping up production and deployment of long-range precision weapons. The extensive use and depletion of these weapons in the war against Ukraine has further undermined this effort.
In June 2020, Putin approved the “Basic Principles of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Domain of Nuclear Deterrence,” promising an extensive description and clarification of disputed aspects of Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy. The document specified four main scenarios that could lead to first use: 1) launch on warning (i.e., a retaliatory strike); 2) use of WMD against Russia; 3) attack on Russian command and control functions, and 4) conventional aggression when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.
Still, the document omitted critical aspects of Russian nuclear policy. While claiming a solely defensive role for Russian nuclear capabilities, similar to the previous documents, it failed to discuss fundamental aspects of Russian nuclear deterrence, such as the arsenal of non-strategic nuclear weapons and their war fighting roles. Despite being absent from the nuclear doctrine, they were, nonetheless, reflected in other Russian strategic-guidance documents and their previous iterations; in statements by Russian officials and noted military experts; in Russia’s nuclear capabilities, force structure and posture; and in nuclear exercises and operations. Rather than clarifying the Russian nuclear doctrine, the document contributed to further fueling Western disputes about it. This aligns with Russia’s doctrinal objective of maintaining deliberate ambiguity regarding the circumstances for the use of nuclear weapons.
Russian nuclear coercion and compellence strategy during the war in Ukraine has had two primary objectives: first, to deter NATO and the United States from direct involvement in the conflict; and second, to minimize their indirect involvement by limiting and delaying Western support for Ukraine, thereby reducing the costs imposed on Russia.
Consequently, Russian nuclear threats — both rhetorical and through strategic signaling involving physical actions — have cast a persistent shadow over every stage of the war. Russia has repeatedly sought to leverage the clause regarding nuclear weapons use “when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.” The aim is to heighten the perceived threat and intensify the sense of danger. A prime example was Putin's address on the day the invasion began. He accused the United States and its allies of pursuing a hostile policy aimed at containing Russia and declared that for Russia, “it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation ... It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and its sovereignty.” Such statements were likely intended to suggest that Western actions had approached the doctrinal threshold justifying Russia's use of nuclear weapons.
Five days before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia conducted its out-of-cycle nuclear exercise Grom as part of its “active defense ” concept. It emphasizes pre-emptive offensive operations, integrating military and non-military instruments of power to “neutralize threats” from an opponent in the early stages of a conflict. Notably, this concept illustrates the offensive dimension of Russia’s deterrence strategy, where coercion and compellence play a key role. The operations aimed to send a clear signal that Russia was ready to escalate in order to deter NATO from direct involvement once the invasion started. A similar objective was likely behind Putin’s order to put the strategic deterrence forces on “special mode of combat duty,” issued on February 27, 2022.
Russia has attempted to manipulate the West’s perception of risk and cost by seeking to highlight the asymmetry of interests in Ukraine.
Likewise, Russia has attempted to manipulate the West’s perception of risk and cost by seeking to highlight the asymmetry of interests in Ukraine. Russia has sought to convince NATO that Russia had higher stakes and thus more resolve to take risks, including crossing the nuclear threshold. The goal has been to pressure Western nations into concluding that the price of continued involvement was too high, leading them to accept political terms for ending the conflict that favor Russia’s interests.
However, contrary to a similar approach employed by Russia during the 2014 annexation of Crimea, these efforts have not yielded similar results. This time, many NATO countries have underscored that the war is also existential for them. The prevailing assumption is that if Russia achieves its objectives in Ukraine, it will continue pursuing its long-term strategic goals, such as expanding its sphere of influence, dismantling the existing European security system and pushing a form of governance that would undermine the broader rules-based international order. This stance has undermined Russia's ability to successfully exert coercive pressure.
On one hand, Russia has managed to shape Western decision-making in its favor to certain extent, especially in initial period of the war. This is evident in policies such as NATO’s commitment to no boots on the ground, the refusal to enforce a no-fly zone, delays in delivering various types of weaponry, and long-standing restrictions on how and where certain Western weapon systems, including long-range strike capabilities like ATACMS and Storm Shadow, by Ukrainian armed forces. These limitations, intended to mitigate the perceived risks of nuclear escalation, have significantly constrained Ukraine's operational flexibility at critical moments in the war.
On the other hand, Russia’s maximalist rhetorical pressure from the early stages of the war has constrained Moscow’s ability to up the ante as the conflict has dragged on. This approach was likely not designed for prolonged use, given that the “special military operation” in Ukraine was initially expected to conclude within days.
As the impact of Russia’s nuclear threats has diminished over time, Western assistance to Ukraine has steadily expanded, further fueled by the recognition of the war's potentially decisive consequences for Euro-Atlantic security and its far-reaching global implications. Consequently, at various stages of the war, Russia has supplemented its extensive verbal threats — often echoed by a plethora of TV personalities, pundits and lower-ranking officials — with a wide array of threats designed to “sober up” Western allies, particularly in Europe.
Likewise, to bolster the credibility of its deterrence, project resolve, and thus manipulate the Western risk perception, Russia has undertaken measures such as:
While nuclear weapons remain a central pillar of Russia’s defense and deterrence, their use should not be viewed in isolation. Notably, the Russian escalation in the nuclear domain has been occurring alongside its escalation in the gray zone. Throughout the war, Russia has been employing the concept of strategic deterrence, integrating nuclear and conventional military capabilities, as well as a wide range of non-military instruments of power, spanning all domains and phases of conflict — from peacetime through crisis and war, designed for escalation control and for warfighting.
Russian escalation in the nuclear domain has been occurring alongside its escalation in the gray-zone.
While U.S. nuclear deterrence succeeded in dissuading Russia from launching a potential conventional armed attack on a NATO country, it has failed to prevent a series of sub-threshold attacks throughout Europe, which intensified particularly in 2024. These attacks have included sabotage operations orchestrated by Russian intelligence services, leveraging an established network of spies and a newly recruited army of local operatives. Examples include setting fires, attempts at sabotaging transport networks and water supply infrastructure, and conducting paramilitary operations such as targeted assassinations.
While objectives of these actions may vary in specific cases, their overarching aim has been to advance the broader goals of Russia’s campaign of nuclear intimidation: to instill fear, foment chaos, empower anti-Ukrainian political forces in Europe, and ultimately pressure Western governments to adopt policies more favorable to Russia’s interests.
Russia’s integrated approach to deterrence exploits a critical vulnerability Moscow has identified in the West: the tendency to compartmentalize nuclear, conventional and non-military domains. Similarly, for over a decade, Russia has taken advantage of the Western inclination to draw rigid distinctions between peace, crisis and war, leveraging its more fluid approach to conflict progression in both doctrine and practice. Notably, the 2014 Russian military doctrine characterized modern conflicts as involving the “comprehensive use of military force, political, economic, informational, and other non-military measures, alongside the extensive use of the protest potential of the population and special operations forces.”
This fragmented approach hampers Western governments' ability to effectively counter Russia's strategy, even more so as it has proven to be more chaotic than well-coordinated. Moreover, Western governments often struggle to even agree on whether Russian gray-zone operations should be considered acts of warfare — as defined by Russia — or something else entirely. Diverging perceptions among allies regarding the nature, severity and urgency of the threat represent an exploitable vulnerability. For instance, Russia could distribute its attacks in a way to fuel these differences, further dividing countries on threat assessment and appropriate responses.
These attacks are likely to intensify, as Russia has few options to shape Western decision-making. The large-scale military reforms Russia initiated in December 2022 aim to expand and reorganize the armed forces, including rebuilding its conventional capabilities. However, carrying out these reforms while simultaneously waging war presents an extraordinarily demanding task. In the meantime, Russia is likely to purse its efforts to undermine strengths and exploit vulnerabilities in NATO countries, favoring cost-effective measures, particularly in the nuclear and gray-zone domains.
The revised nuclear doctrine appears to be yet another attempt to address the West’s growing immunity to Russian nuclear intimidation, aimed to restore the credibility of Russia's deterrence. Among the amendments, Russia has specified that aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) its allies by a non-nuclear state, with the involvement or support of a nuclear state, shall be considered as a joint attack. This adjustment appears designed to dissuade the United States and other nuclear NATO members from supporting Ukraine, particularly by enabling certain types of attacks on Russia using Western weapon systems. However, as noted in the overview of Russia's strategic documents above, this formulation is hardly new, even if it carries renewed significance in the context of the ongoing war.
Further amendments involve adding Belarus to the formulation concerning the potential use of nuclear weapons in response to aggression involving conventional forces. This is a relatively new element, though it is a logical consequence of the deployment of Russian NSNW to Belarus.
Notably, Russia has revised the key phrasing from “when the very existence of the state would be in jeopardy” to “an aggression creating a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity.” This wording closely resembles that of the 2000 military doctrine and suggests a lower threshold for nuclear use compared to the preceding formulation. However, the exact meaning of “critical threat” remains ambiguous, raising several questions: Does it primarily refer to conventional aggression? Could it encompass direct military involvement of NATO in the war in Ukraine? Or might it extend to perceived Western interference in domestic unrest that would threaten Putin’s hold on power?
Russia never explicitly defined the phrase “the very existence of the state” either. In the West, it was widely interpreted as referring to a last-resort scenario involving a near-total annihilation of Russia. However, other strategic guidance documents, along with capabilities, exercise patterns, and official Russian communications, suggested that Russian authorities may apply it also to less extreme situations. For example, during the annual nuclear Grom exercise in 2019, Major General Yevgenii Ilyin, at the time acting head of the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation, stated that the official scenario for the use of nuclear weapons in the exercise envisioned “an escalation of a situation in which there remains the potential for conflict along Russian borders that would pose a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state.” In this regard, the 2024 amendments may not represent a significant departure.
The underlying goal is likely to increase uncertainty among adversaries, while granting Russian leadership the latitude to adapt its actions as needed.
Finally, the doctrine now includes the possibility of a Russian nuclear response to a “massive launch (takeoff) of air and space attack weapons (strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned, hypersonic and other aircraft) and their crossing of the state border of the Russian Federation.” Given the previous broad and ambiguous formulation, such scenarios were possibly already implied in the doctrine, even if not explicitly detailed. This update, once again, appears to be linked to the war in Ukraine, aiming to strengthen deterrence against ongoing attacks by the Ukrainian armed forces on Russian territory, particularly targeting energy and military infrastructure.
The overarching question remains: How much weight should be placed on official Russian doctrinal communications, such as the nuclear doctrine? If Russia were to remove the language of nuclear first use, how significant would that change be in reality?
Strategic guidance documents reflect crucial trendlines in Russian strategic thinking, providing insights into potential scenarios and responses. However, the Kremlin would likely be unconstrained by official declaratory statements and limitations on when, where and how to employ nuclear weapons if such a decision was made. While the public representations of Russian nuclear deterrence serve as an important messaging tool, they remain intentionally selective and incomplete, leaving out key terms, circumstances, and possible courses of action. This approach underscores a core element of Russia's nuclear deterrence, which values ambiguity and flexibility. The underlying goal is likely to increase uncertainty among adversaries, while granting Russian leadership the latitude to adapt its actions as needed.
Dr. Katarzyna Zysk is a professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies in Oslo.