President Joe Biden is reported to have authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) for strikes deep inside Russia. In interviews with both the UK’s Times Radio and the BBC news program The World At One on Nov. 18, former Putin advisor and semi-official mouthpiece Sergei Markov responded to the move by warning of an imminent Russian nuclear strike—not just on Ukraine but on the United States and Britain. “In the worst scenario, the nuclear war happens before Christmas of this year,” he told the BBC. “Probably you will not be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ because you will stay in the hole trying to hide away [your] family from the nuclear catastrophe. It can develop very, very quickly.”
That same day, Russian lawmaker Maria Butina told Reuters: “Biden’s administration is trying to escalate the situation to the maximum while they still have power and are still in office. I have a great hope that Trump will overcome this decision if this has been made because they are seriously risking the start of World War III, which is not in anybody’s interest.”
The sentiment was echoed by Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted Nov. 17: “The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives… Imbeciles!” (BBC News, WaPo, Express, DW)
As Russian nuclear threats escalate, so do air-strikes on Ukrainian cities. On the same day Markov and Butina spoke, Russian missiles struck residential buildings in Odessa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 18. (Kyiv Post)
Photo of ATACMS being launched: Ukraine Ministry of Defense via Forces News
Putin lowers Russia’s threshold for using nuclear arms
President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 19 lowered Russia’s threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
The decree signed by Putin implements a revised version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine that the leader described in televised remarks in September. But the timing was clearly meant to send a message, coming just two days after the news that President Biden had authorized the use of US-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia.
Asked whether Russia could respond with nuclear weapons to such strikes, Dmitri Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, repeated the new doctrine’s language that Russia “reserves the right” to use such weapons to respond to a conventional-weapons attack that creates a “critical threat” to its “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense later announced that Kyiv had used the long-range ballistic missiles known as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, in a pre-dawn attack on an ammunition depot in southwestern Russia. (NYT)
Ukraine struck with Russian ICBM?
What Ukrainian authorities initially called a Russian ICBM struck the city of Dnipro on Nov. 21. apparently causing no casualties. Putin said it was a new experimental missile called the Oreshnik. The Pentagon later identified it as an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), a variation on the RS-26 Rubezh. In any case, it is believed to have been equipped with MIRV technology, or multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles—developed for nuclear strikes. The missile was apparently launched from a base in Astrakhan, meaning that it travelled some 500 miles (800 kilometers) to reach its target. Despite the minimal damage caused, this clearly represents an unprecedented escalation.(Army Technology, The Guardian, The Guardian, ABC)