As Russia continues losing its war against Ukraine, fears are growing that Vladimir Putin might use nuclear weapons to shift things in his favor.
The Russian president last week warned that any direct intervention by Western powers in Ukraine would lead to his “lightning” riposte with strategic, read “nuclear,” weapons. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the risk of nuclear war is now considerable. State media are also providing more thermonuclear rhetoric.
This dangling of nuclear annihilation has two purposes. First, to deter greater Western support for Ukraine by threat of Russian escalation. Second, to encourage Russians to believe that, even as it struggles in Ukraine, the Russian military remains strong. As Russian casualties grow alongside sanctions-induced economic suffering at home, Putin must fear increasingly popular protests of his policy. Though such protests are highly unlikely to threaten Putin’s grip on power and significant base of support, Russian political culture views any emerging political challenge, however limited, as toxic.
Regardless, there’s a problem with Russia’s nuclear threats: They do not match up with reality.
Yes, Russia’s nuclear forces give Putin the means to annihilate major Western cities such as London, Berlin, Paris, Washington, D.C., and New York. Yes, Putin could destroy many more cities than those five alone. That said, Putin lacks the credible threat of being able to do to the West what the United States, Britain, and France (NATO’s three nuclear powers) could collectively do to Russia — namely, annihilate the Russian Federation as a sovereign territorial entity.
Putin and top propagandists like Dmitry Kiselyov use vicious bluster to veil this vulnerability. Kiselyov, for example, used his most recent Sunday evening TV show to claim that Russia’s new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile and Poseidon underwater drone could entirely destroy Britain. Boris Johnson’s government has earned the Kremlin’s particular fury for its flooding of Ukraine with arms and long-overdue crackdown on the Kremlin’s financial interests in London.
Yet Kiselyov’s claims — and, by extension, Putin’s threats — are exaggerated.
For a start, one Sarmat missile could not, as Kiselyov asserts, destroy Britain. While that ICBM is Russia’s most advanced, able to carry next-generation hypersonic glide vehicles, each missile is unlikely to carry more than 10 nuclear warheads. Befitting its purpose of evading U.S. missile defense systems, the Sarmat’s remaining payload would instead likely be dedicated to decoy vehicles. And while each nuclear warhead would be enabled by an independent reentry vehicle, one missile could not range across the United Kingdom. One Sarmat could destroy London and perhaps two or three cities in southern England, but not much more. Kiselyov also claimed that the Poseidon underwater drone, which is designed to cause a highly radioactive tsunami, could eliminate the British isles (interestingly, the video suggests that Ireland won’t be spared from Kiselyov’s wrath). It could not. Indeed, the Poseidon system’s technical viability is questionable.
Don’t misunderstand me. None of this is to say that losses from a Russian nuclear onslaught would be acceptable. Clearly, they would be catastrophic to a degree never before seen in the history of warfare. But in the event of a nuclear war, Russia would cease to exist, while the U.S., and likely Britain and its other Western allies, would almost certainly survive as sovereign entities. While the Biden administration’s response to Putin’s threats has centered on delusional appeasement, Putin simply can’t get enough nuclear warheads onto enough targets.
Consider that Russia’s ballistic missile submarines are near permanently tracked by U.S. and British attack submarines during their patrols. This includes the latest generation of Russian submarines. Finland’s looming accession to NATO will only strengthen this tracking ability. Similarly, Russian nuclear bomber aircraft would struggle to get within range of U.S. strategic targets (they would have to go through dozens of F-22 fighter jets, based in Alaska for this very reason). Russia’s ground-based ICBM force would pose its greatest threat. Even then, the Sarmat is only just being rolled out into Russia’s otherwise aging Strategic Rocket Forces.
And, as has been the case with Russian forces in Ukraine, mismanagement, deferred repairs, and corruption have taken a toll on readiness. In contrast, the U.S. and French Air Force, the U.S., British, and French submarine ballistic missile forces, and the U.S. ground-based missile forces are well-maintained. More importantly, they can penetrate Russian defensive cordons at scale. Putin knows all this, and even if he decides to forget it, his military commanders know it. Their willingness to follow Putin in the annihilation of their honor, families, and nation is highly doubtful. Put simply, we should retain confidence in effective nuclear deterrence.
Still, you can’t say that nuclear annihilation games don’t pay. Western populations are increasingly googling related stories, and Putin is getting attention. Moreover, having threatened annihilation, Kiselyov has just jetted off to a five-star resort in Dubai!
