Will Putin use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine — and soon?

Peoples and governments should be prepared for the first military use of a nuclear weapon since 1945.

At present this is being discussed as a distant and abstract concept, whereas the first use of a nuclear weapon may take place before the end of summer.

There are two main types of nuclear weapon: strategic and tactical. The strategic have the explosive equivalent of thousands of tons of TNT and as such their explosive yield is measured in megatons. They are designed to obliterate large cities or provide sufficient overpressure to eliminate heavily-reinforced targets. The tactical are those whose yield is measured in kilotons. The Hiroshima bomb yielded between 16-20 kilotons. However, tactical nuclear weapons may be designed to create even more localised damage and might have a yield of “only” a couple of kilotons lest they cause what is described as overkill. It is this type that Putin may use later this year.

While using a nuclear weapon in a foreign country would be regarded an outrage, the same cannot be said about using such a weapon on a country’s own soil. In fact numerous devices have been exploded by all the nuclear powers within their borders. And this provides a clue as to how this first use in over seven decades may come about.

Putin is losing the Ukraine War. Like all aggressors, he depended on a swift military victory of the type achieved by Germany in Europe between September 1939 and May 1941. When this did not happen, Putin’s forces started to be degraded as their advances were slowed and challenged. This degradation can only benefit Ukraine, as the qualitative difference narrows while the quantitative difference increases in Ukraine’s favour. Putin invaded Ukraine with too few soldiers for such a large country. As the Russian army degenerates into a people’s militia, its ground forces will begin to be outnumbered by hastily-trained Ukrainian volunteers.

Ukrainian forces, armed with thousands of modern hand-held surface-to-air missiles, could be able to enforce a no-fly zone. Russia cannot safely use its latest Mi-28 and Ka-50 attack helicopters, as Ukraine has no such machines in its Soviet-legacy military inventory and so they will always be recognised as hostile. Their distinctive canard fore-planes mean Russian Sukhoi fighter-bombers can be distinguished from similar-looking Ukrainian Su-27 fighters. Last week video footage of two Mi-28s attacking ground targets was widely circulated, showing one of the helicopters having its tail sheared off by a British StarStreak missile. If Russia experiences a 50% loss rate every time she mounts an air raid, she will pretty soon have no aircraft left.

Russia is fighting a 21st-century war using largely 1980s technology, against an opponent that is receiving state-of-the-art equipment. She is also short of precision munitions, which is why she is using area-bombing as a military tactic, as well as an indiscriminate use of artillery. Her fighter-bomber aircraft have few stand-off smart weapons, so they have to get close to their targets to release their lethal cargo, increasing the risk of being shot down. Russian drones rely entirely on Western electronics that Russia can no longer source openly. Her tanks have been shown to be vulnerable to American Javelins and British NLAWs that attack armour where it is at its thinnest, namely the top of the turret. To counter this Russia installed “cope cages”, metal shelters designed to deflect directed explosives. They do not work.

While Putin may have been able to fix Ukrainian forces in their desperate defence of Kyiv, he did so at a great cost. Unless Russian military policy persists with throwing away lives to secure a military advantage, the withdrawal from the capital is a defeat, rather than a diversionary action. It is hard to believe this was a military demonstration designed to divert attention from the Eastern Front. If Russia can be defeated at the gates of Kyiv, they can be defeated anywhere.

Russia does not have numerical superiority, technological superiority, or indeed air superiority. Its armed forces on the Kyiv Front seems to have been a rabble or quickly became one. There are reports of Putin having to scour the world for soldiers for his fight. The quality of his troops, certainly the conscripts, are little more than armed civilians. Their indiscipline has been on show with the commission of numerous war crimes.

The terrain of Eastern Ukraine is less forested than the Kyiv area and this may preclude guerrilla tactics by Ukrainian forces. But, as the Israelis discovered during the Yom Kippur War, mass tank formations are very vulnerable to anti-tank guided weapons. Britain has been training and equipping Ukrainian forces since 2014 for this kind of fight, as British armed forces would have been very aware of Russian strategy, tactics, and probably have worked out a way to neutralise them. We have extensive experience of how to take down armoured formations, having been on the receiving end in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Putin’s forces will be better able to rely on more secure lines of supply, those forces may be reduced before they can be reinforced. The war may rapidly become a fight between infantry forces as Russian armoured fighting vehicles become death-traps on the front line, or indeed, Ukraine has the advantage in armoured fighting vehicles.

Putin seems to want to wrap up the war decisively before Russia’s annual victory parade on May 9. A march-past of thousands of troops that are needed on a Ukraine front where Russia is taking major casualties would look silly. But if Russia could not defeat Ukraine in almost seven weeks since 24 February, how can they do so in the four weeks until 9 May?

If the Ukrainian Army now has thousands of state-of-the-art surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles, then the Russian Army and Air Force will have the same problems as did the Israelis when Egypt crossed into Sinai in 1973. Then, it was the hubris of the Egyptian forces that saw them move out from under their surface-to-air missile umbrella, which led to them being set upon by the Israeli Air Force. Modern handheld surface-to-air missiles will have the same effect on Russia’s aeroplanes and helicopters.

So Putin may take the nuclear option if it becomes the difference between defeat and victory. He might argue that he is only using such a device to protect Russia from a Ukrainian “invasion”, describing territory seized from Ukraine in 2014 as being as Russian as Red Square. On that basis, he could state that first use of a nuclear weapon is legitimate defensive act, rather as Churchill authorised the use of mustard gas on British soil should the Germans have invaded in 1940.

The nuclear weapon used would be tactical, with a yield of a few kilotons. Radiation and fallout would be minimal, but the blast damage would be equivalent to a major artillery barrage. This first use would be a serious escalation and could also incentivise ceasefire negotiations,79 with Putin having gained a large chunk of Ukrainian territory. Further nuclear attacks of the same kind would be threatened unless the fighting stopped.

The international consequences would be massive, but it is hard to see what additional economic sanctions could be levelled at Russia. If China did not condemn Putin, if Putin was not deposed by his own people for the aggressive use of a nuclear weapon on foreign soil, this crime would not be punished. The whole reason NATO forces have not entered Ukraine to fight Russian forces has been because of the fear this would escalate into a general war between NATO and Russia that would go nuclear, although Russia still also has a significant long-range conventional bomber force with which to threaten European capitals. It is unlikely that Russia’s first use of a nuclear weapon would be a sufficient casus belli lest these European cities become Putin’s new targets. Putin’s nuclear blackmail would still be intact.

As to the fate of the UN and its main function of preventing a general war between the powers, there is a risk that the organisation will start to go the same way as its predecessor, the League of Nations, by having failed to keep this vital peace. The world would become divided between the democracies on one side and the Eurasian dictatorships on the other, with smaller nations being required to pick a side. Some may pick the dictatorships. We would enter a new dark age governed by fear.

And yet this concept is not being widely entertained or discussed. Putin is losing this war, and it is fanciful to believe he would not take the nuclear option to change this outcome. It should not be a surprise. People should wake up to this impending reality. The war may be over by Christmas, but not in a good way.

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