Putin approved the updated nuclear doctrine. It considers even a mass launch of drones as a reason for an attack

The head of the Kremlin Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving Russiaʼs updated nuclear doctrine.

The document was published on the legal information portal of the Russian Federation on November 19.

In the doctrine, the category of states and military alliances that are subject to nuclear deterrence has been expanded. The list of military threats that require such actions to be neutralized has also been added.

In particular, aggression by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, will be considered their joint attack on the Russian Federation.

In addition, a nuclear response from Russia is possible in the event of a critical threat to its sovereignty even with conventional weapons, in the event of an attack on Belarus as a member of the Union State, in the event of a mass launch of military aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, and other aerial vehicles and their crossing of the Russian border.

Putinʼs press secretary Dmytro Peskov explained that the update of the nuclear doctrine was necessary "to make it relevant to the current situation".

He also stated that the use of Western non-nuclear missiles by the Armed Forces against Russia under the updated doctrine could trigger a nuclear response. According to him, the Russian military is "closely monitoring the situation after reports of Kyivʼs intention to use ATACMS missiles".

Has the doctrine changed significantly?

As Maksym Starchak from the Center for International and Defense Policy at Queenʼs University told the BBC, the new provisions of the nuclear doctrine clarify the conditions for the use of nuclear weapons, but the reasons for their use do not change.

"This is a threat to the existence of the state and a threat to nuclear weapons. If previously the condition for the use of nuclear weapons was an attack by ballistic missiles, now it has expanded to all means of air and space attack," he said.

He also added that under the new doctrine, Belarus officially received a nuclear umbrella for any attack on it — however, this was already fixed in other words in the military doctrine of the Union State. The fact that participation in the aggression of a non-nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear state may lead to a nuclear strike in response was already recorded in the Budapest Memorandum signed by Russia in 1994.

• The approval of the updated doctrine followed the information about Ukraineʼs permission to strike deep into Russia with American missiles with a range of up to 300 km.
• The NYT newspaper was the first to report on the permission to beat ATACMS on the territory of Russia. She wrote that this is Joe Bidenʼs response to Russiaʼs decision to send North Korean troops into battle. The publication Axios wrote that the United States allowed to strike long-range ATACMS only in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.

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