On March 25, 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus, its ally in the war in Ukraine. A month earlier, Russia suspended its participation in the “New Start” nuclear weapons treaty concluded with the United States. The new game of Russia’s nuclear muscles is already taking place according to a scheme that can be traced back to the beginning of the war.

With the plan for a quick invasion thwarted by increased resistance from the Ukrainian army, and the West more united than ever in the face of its aggression, Vladimir Putin proposed something that had not been allowed in any war for 75 years: the nuclear option. If the EU, the US, and NATO launched economic strikes and military options that are equivalent to bombs in the history of diplomacy toward Russia, the cornered leader from the Kremlin responded in a style that should surprise no one: a threat and an even bigger one.

But how serious is Vladimir Putin and what does his order mean, addressed immediately after the start of the war to Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and the commander of the Russian army, General Valery Gerasimov, to put Russia’s strategic deterrent forces in a state. high readiness?

Putin’s ambiguous wording has left officials and analysts in the West, as well as in Russia, scratching their heads. Probably, this was also one of Putin’s goals: to sow fear and uncertainty. What did Putin actually order when he ordered the transfer of Russian deterrence forces, i.e. armed with nuclear warheads, to a “special mode of combat mobilization”?

A clarifying answer was received from the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Serhii Shoigu. He said that he had carried out the order of the “commander” Putin and “the combat groups of the command posts of the Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern and Pacific Fleets and the command of long-range military aviation have been put on high alert.” battle”.

Russian nuclear forces have four levels of combat readiness, explained British analyst Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s security policy: permanent (lowest level), enhanced (enhanced), danger (danger) and full (full). Thus, Putin practically raised the level of combat readiness of these forces from the lowest level to the next.

Putin’s move means that Russia’s command and control system can now transmit orders to launch its nuclear weapons. So far, there was no physical possibility to launch even an order related to nuclear weapons. Now, theoretically, it exists.

Read more at Panorama.ro.