22 September 2022
edited 11 August 2023 

Nuclear Flatulence

Russia no 'first use' of nuclear weapons policy  

Russian potential use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine is a "deliberate lie" (Shoigu) 

Some officials in NATO countries advocate attacking Russia with nuclear weapons

Quotes from the publicly available english language Russian Nuclear Doctrine

Russia's technical briefing on a dirty bomb security threat 25 October 2022

Depleted Uranium Shells

Possible Russian response to western participation in Ukrainian nuclear terrorism

As Russia announces the partial mobilisation of its reservists and as various culturally Russian Oblasts declare they will have a plebiscite on whether or not to once again become part of Russia there are several issues that deserve comment.

Nuclear fallout from NATO aggression - where will it fall?

September 21, 2022 in an address by the President of the Russian Federation to Russian citizens (and anyone else who didn't have clothe ears) the President made a rather obscure remark that was probably lost on most of us:

"Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the wind rose can turn around."
Vladimir Putin 21 September 2022

A wind rose is a circular diagram like a bike wheel, with each spoke a compass bearing, with the spoke longer or shorter according to how often the wind blows from a given quarter. The prevailing wind in a country, in other words.

It is also (basically) a compass. NATO has a 4-pronged wind rose on its flag. Perhaps the comment refers to NATO expanding from west to east, in breach of it's 1990 promise not to expand "one inch east". Perhaps  NATO, if it is wise, will turn around and go back west to the 1990 situation. "...the wind rose can turn around". Was it a threat?

The Russian President said "can", not 'must'. I suppose you could take a very liberal interpretation and say that NATO should withdraw 'or else', but that is a stretch of interpreting what are fairly plain words. Alternatively, in the end, NATO will be forced to withdraw because Russia will attack all NATO personnel in Ukraine. But that is an even more far-fetched interpretation. Any NATO staff participating in the conflict on the ground in Ukraine are defined as 'combatants', and are legitimate targets. But - so far - haven't been hit yet. Perhaps the President really was warning these staff - and some are presumably senior staff - to withdraw from their participation in the conflict - or else. There is a precedent.

Some years ago, Russia used a missile to hit various western special forces in Syria who were directing fire onto Russian armed forces personnel. At the time, the Russian President said (referring to the west) something along the lines of 'do you think we don't know where you are?'. The implication was Russia always known the exact location of the (illegal) foreign military 'covert' observation and fire control posts in Syria, and had not touched them - until the point they directed fire onto Russian forces fighting the foreign-sponsored terrorists. It is almost certain Russia knows exactly where in Ukraine the NATO staff are (official and 'unofficial' staff). In spite of constant warnings by Russia, NATO has made itself a party to the conflict.

"American officials are avoiding giving guarantees that the advanced missile systems which are being supplied to the Kiev regime will not be used by the Ukrainian armed forces to hit targets on our territory, and they also describe as legitimate the barbaric shelling by Ukrainian armed groups of cities and villages in the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, and of areas in Ukraine which have been liberated.

By so doing, the United States has become a party to the conflict with all the ensuing consequences, something that our officials, experts and statesmen have said on more than one occasion. Of course, this is a dangerous path..."
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, 14 July 2022

"...on October 17, their [EU] foreign ministers signed off on a military assistance mission to train over 15,000 Ukrainian command personnel at various levels in two years. The mission will be deployed in a month. ...This step, along with supplying the Kiev regime with lethal weapons, qualitatively increases the European Union’s involvement, making it a party to the conflict."
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, October 20, 2022

Perhaps a more logical meaning is that of a meteorological wind rose, referring to the result of the US detonating a 'tactical' (relatively small) nuclear weapon in or above Russia, expecting the nuclear fallout to fall on Russian territory. But.the wind could shift and also blow the fallout onto Europe.

But there is another, much more likely meaning. On the 23rd of October 2022, the Russian Information Agency (RIA Novosti) reported (as cited by RT):

"RIA Novosti cited “sources in different countries including Ukraine” as saying that Kiev is preparing to detonate “a dirty bomb or a low-yield nuclear weapon” on its own territory. According to the Russian news agency, the goal would be to accuse Moscow of using weapons of mass destruction in a ploy to “launch a powerful anti-Russia campaign”.

The report claimed that two Ukrainian institutions have already been tasked with manufacturing a “dirty bomb,” with the work now at “the final stages.” Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's administration is reportedly engaged in behind-the-scenes talks with British officials in a bid to secure the transfer of nuclear arms components to Kiev.

A so-called dirty bomb uses a conventional explosive combined with radioactive material. While it could not rival a nuclear warhead in terms of power, such a device could disperse a radiation cloud within several kilometers of the explosion."
RT 23 October 2022

On the same day, the Russian Minister of Defense & General of the Army reported that he had informed the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defence, the French Minister of Defense, and the Turkish Minister of Defense of a plot to explode either a low yield nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb on Ukrainian territory. In the Russian MOD readout on the first call, which was said to be initiated by the US Secretary of Defense, there is no mention of discussion of a nuclear bomb, dirty or otherwise.

"On 23 October 2022, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, has held telephone talks with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
They discussed situation in Ukraine.
@mod_russia_en"

"On 23 October 2022, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, has held telephone talks with UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace.
They discussed situation in Ukraine. General of the Army Sergei Shoigu conveyed to the British counterpart his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’.
@mod_russia_en

On 23 October 2022, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, has held telephone talks with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.
They discussed situation in Ukraine, which is rapidly deteriorating. General of the Army Sergei Shoigu conveyed to the Turkish counterpart his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’.

On 23 October 2022, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu, has held telephone talks with French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu. They discussed situation in Ukraine, which is rapidly deteriorating. General of the Army Sergei Shoigu conveyed to the French counterpart his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’.
@mod_russia_en

The US Secretary of Defense initiated a call (by phone) to UK's Ben Wallace on October 23 as a "continuation of their discussion at the Pentagon last week, which covered a wide range of shared defense and security priorities, including Ukraine.” No mention of a discussion on a dirty bomb. Was the call placed before or after Shoigu's call to Austin?

(The 23rd of October is the date 20 years ago when armed terrorists took the audience at the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow hostage.Over 100 people died in the rescue effort. Psychological and physical attacks on Russia are sometimes deliberately timed to re-ignite painful memories.)

The day after this news broke on the 23rd, Boris Johnston decided he wouldn't run for PM after all. (It was Johnston who killed the peace deal that Ukraine and Russia were on the point of signing some months ago.)

How did the accused parties publicly respond? The Pentagon brief readout of Shoigu's call to Austin on the 23rd of October made zero mention of a dirty bomb. The USA Pentagon Press Secretary delayed commenting on the Shoigu-Austin call of the 21st of October  until October 24th  when it said "the United States rejects the public and false allegations by Russia about Ukraine". At that point without mentioning a dirty bomb. (The US routinely rejects any allegations Russia makes about crimes against humanity and war crimes in Ukraine, irrespective of evidence.)

On the 24th of October, Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of General Staff of the Russian Military (he is also Deputy Minister of Defense) "carried on" talks with Chief of the UK Defense Staff Admiral Antony Radakin.  Valery Gerasimov also "carried on" talks with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Mark Milley. In both cases the parties "carried on" the discussion on Ukraines possible use of a dirty bomb. That was the topic of conversation.

After Austen talked to NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the 24th October, the Pentagon spokesperson related that the leaders "discussed recent diplomatic engagements with Russia, Russia's false accusation that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own soil, and the need for Russia to de-escalate." Finally, putting an end to it, that afternoon the State Department spokesperson said:

"...over the weekend you did hear and you saw a number of calls take place not only from senior officials here in Washington but from capitals in Europe. And you saw a remarkably consistent message in those readouts of those calls as well as in the joint statement that we put out last night with the forbearance of our French and British partners, who were working late – early into this morning, I should say – to finalize it, that made clear that we’re concerned when we hear this type of patently false disinformation emanating from the Kremlin. We know the Kremlin’s track record when it comes to these types of claims. That’s what – of course what is the predicate, what ultimately undergirds our concern. We reject the transparently false allegation that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory."

Well, it's false. Not just false but '"patently false". "Transparently false". No substance to it. That's a relief.

Or, on the other hand it is, as the Russians say, 'highly probable' that the criminal operation was hurriedly cancelled once the plot was publicly exposed (as happened in Syria).

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense briefing of the 25th of October 2022 (access censored in the freedom-loving west), preparations of a dirty bomb are at a late stage. The briefing (minus the pictures) by the Russian Defense Ministry is reproduced here:

"Briefing on radiation security threats by the chief of nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov
October 25, 2022

The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has information about Kiev regime’s planning to commit a provocation by exploding the so-called ‘dirty bomb’ or low-power nuclear warhead.

The provocation is aimed at accusing Russia of using mass destruction weapon at the Ukrainian theatre of operations that would launch a powerful anti-Russian campaign in order to undermine the confidence in Moscow.

It is to be recalled that the President Zelensky announced his intention to re-establish Ukraine as a nuclear-armed State at the Munich Security Conference dated 19 February 2022. 

It should also be noted that President Zelensky has repeatedly called on NATO countries to launch a strike at the Russian Federation since the beginning of the special military operation. ‘What does NATO have to do? We need pre-emptive strikes, so that they’ll know what will happen to them if they use (nukes). And not the other way around, don’t wait for Russia’s nuclear strikes...’

Recently, in an interview to Canadian TV channels on 22 October, Zelensky urged the world to strike Kremlin if Russia launches attacks at the ‘decision-making centres’ in Bankovaya street where the Office of the President of Ukraine is located.

We would like to recall the possibility of a complicated radiation situation that can evolve around the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear plant in Europe.
From 24 February until now, the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant has suffered 39 fire attacks launched by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), including 10 launched by unmanned aerial vehicles and 29 by various artillery systems
.
The attacks launched by the AFU at the plant did not cause any anxiety of the world community as, according to various U.S. experts, an impact of large-calibre artillery shells to spent nuclear fuel containers will not cause a considerable risk, and the nuclear reactors are resistible to a civilian airplane crash.
However, the forecast of our experts about the radiation situation’s development furtherly confirmed by relevant European scientific organisations has shown that the release of radioactive substances will affect almost whole Europe.

Moreover, despite the visit of the IAEA Director General R. Grossi, the AFU have not abandoned their attempts to carry out a subversive operation to capture the plant. On 1, 15, 30 September and 17 October, special units of the AFU attempted to land their forces through the Kakhovka reservoir and to take the nuclear power plant under control.

According to the available information, two organisations of Ukraine have been directly ordered to create the so-called ‘dirty bomb’. The works are at their concluding stage.

Moreover, we have information about contacts between the Office of the President of Ukraine and representatives of the United Kingdom regarding the possible reception of technologies to create nuclear weapons
.
With this purpose, Ukraine has got relevant production and scientific capacities.There are enterprises of nuclear industry in Ukraine that possess stockpiles of radioactive substances that can be used for creating the ‘dirty bomb’. These concern three operating nuclear power plants: the Yuzhnoukrainsk, Khmelnitsky and Rovno nuclear power plants with nine storage pools for spent nuclear fuel that contain up to 1.5 thousand tonnes of uranium enriched with up to 1.5% of oxide.

Over 22,000 fuel assemblies (21,284 and 1,692 respectively) are stored at the inoperable Chernobyl nuclear power plant with radioactive waste repositories, as well as products that suppose using Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 that constitute the backbone of a nuclear charge.

More than 50,000 m³ of radioactive waste that are also apt as the backbone for creating the ‘dirty bomb’ can be stored at the recently established enterprise ‘Vektor’ designed for radioactive waste reprocessing at the radioactive waste disposal sites ‘Buryakovka’, ‘Podlesny’, and ‘Rossokha’ at Pridneprovsky chemical plant.

Moreover, the Eastern Mining and Processing Plant extracts uranium ore at two of the three shafts with a capacity of up to 1,000 tonnes per year (the plant includes three shafts for extracting uranium ore, two of them – Ingulskaya and Smolinskaya – are operable, while one of them – Novokonstantinovskaya – is currently under construction).

It is also to be emphasised that Ukraine has at its disposal a scientific base: the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology. Its scientists were involved in the nuclear programme of the USSR where various testing systems are still in operation, including Uragan thermonuclear systems. The second base is the Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine located in Kiev. Its BBP-M reactor is used for research that supposes the employment of high-activity radioactive materials.

I want to recall that the ‘dirty bomb’ constitutes a container with radioactive isotopes and explosive charge. In case of exploding the charge, the container is to be destroyed, and the radioactive substance is to be pulverised by a blast wave that produces radioactive contamination at large areas, and can cause a radiation morbidity. Uranium oxide that forms part of spent fuel elements stored at spent nuclear fuel and storage pools of nuclear power plants can be used as the radioactive substance. Moreover, it concerns the radioactive substances derived from the spent nuclear fuel storages of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The Kiev regime plans to camouflage the explosion of this kind of ordnance under an extraordinary effect of Russian low-power nuclear warhead that contains highly enriched uranium in its charge. The presence of radioactive isotopes in the air will be recorded by the sensors of the International Monitoring System installed in Europe with further accusation of the Russian Federation of using tactical nuclear weapons.

It is to be noted that this kind of information warfare technologies have already been used by the West in Syria when the White Helmets were filming propaganda footage about the employment of chemical weapons by the governmental forces there. One of the most resonant and widely distributed episodes is the provocation committed by the abovementioned non-governmental organisation and their patrons on 4 April 2017 in Khan Sheikhoun.

Pay attention to the picture where the people who are taking samples of soil have no individual protection means. But it does not seem to bother anyone! Especially those who took the decision to launch a missile strike at the territory of the sovereign country.

Using this provocation as a pretext, the Americans launched the missile strike at Shayrat airbase without waiting for an investigation to begin and, all the more, a decision of the UN Security Council, grossly violating the international law.

This scenario is highly probable to be used in this case, too.

Detonation of a radiological explosive device will inevitably lead to radiological contamination covering up to several thousands of square metres.

To summarise, Ukraine has got a motive to use the ‘dirty bomb’, as well as scientific, technical and production capacities to create it. Ukraine expects ‘dirty-bomb’ provocation to intimidate the population, increase the flow of refugees, and accuse the Russian Federation of nuclear terrorism.

The Ministry of Defence has arranged for countering possible provocations of Ukraine: the means and forces are alerted to operate amid radioactive contamination."

On the 26th of October, further details from were revealed from "a source familiar with the situation". 

"Experts from the Yuzhmash plant have already made a dummy missile of the Iskander system, the head cluster part of which is planned to be filled with radioactive material, and then 'shot down' by Ukrainian air defense forces over the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in order to declare a Russian launch of a nuclear charge..After the dummy is shot down, the Kiev authorities intend to show the Western and Ukrainian media fragments of the mockup and electronics of the alleged Iskander missile in order to convince the Western public of Russia's guilt."
Sputnik News 26 October 2022

According to Sputnik, the unnamed source alleged "...the model of the Iskander missile was made on the basis of a projectile from the Tochka-U missile system." The Tocha-U missiles are short range ballistic missiles used by Ukraine and several other former Soviet states, such as Belarus.

Possible Russian response to western participation in nuclear terrorism

In light of the above, the 'fallout' idea has now become a much more plausible explanation of the Russian President's comment about the wind blowing away from Russia. Meaning a potential Russian 'tit for tat' response to a nuclear-fallout-contaminated Russia from a US or UK  facilitated dirty bomb exploded in the already-contaminated Chernobyl exclusion zone. If the explosion is small and the amount of material limited, the height of detonation low, and in low wind conditions, then this would be not much more than a hoax created for propaganda purposes.

In the apparently unlikely case of Ukraine firing an American HIMARS 'dirty bomb' missile at the Donetsk area (which Ukraine regards as it's own territory), whether shot down by Russia or not, this would be a different matter.  Of course, this may simply be a threat, designed to wring concessions from Russia. A 'gun to Russia's head'. In other words, make concessions to Ukraine in peace negotiations or potentially suffer pollution with low level radioactive material over perhaps thousands of square meters (there are 10,000 square meters to the hectare). Enough to force the evacuation of a moderate sized town or small city. The city would be contaminated (depending on the isotopes) for at least 50 years, maybe longer.

The Russian 'payback' response could be the detonation of either one or a series of dirty bombs just outside UK or USA territory - at a time when the prevailing wind would carry the fallout over a UK or United States coastal city.

Depleted Uranium Shells

Russia stated that use of depleted uranium shells on Russian territory would be regarded as use of a 'dirty nuclear bomb'.

"We know that Leopard 2 tanks, as well as Bradley and Marder armored fighting vehicles, can use depleted uranium shells, which can contaminate terrain, just like it happened in Yugoslavia and Iraq,” he said. “If Kiev were to be supplied with such munitions for the use in western heavy military hardware, we would regard it as the use of ‘dirty nuclear bombs’ against Russia, with all the consequences that entails.”
Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control, 25 January 2023 

The shells were supplied by the UK. I'm not sure about other countries. In May 2023, when the wind was blowing towards Poland and the UK, Russia blew up a warehouse in Western Ukraine containing munitions, and in early August 2023 Russia confirmed the warehouse contained shells tipped with depleted uranium. This comports with expert opinions based on the video of the explosion, which indicated to them it may have contained depleted uranium.

The prevailing wind at the time of the explosion carried the particulates over Poland and beyond, to the United Kingdom. A spike in background radiation was noted on the European official radiation monitoring website by a British expert in the field. (He noted that the data on the site was then quickly altered to remove the 'pulse'.)

https://twitter.com/Laurie_Meadows/status/1668729791678406657?s=20

On the 9th of August 2023 the Russian Foreign Ministry commented on the radiation spike, and wondered whether or not a recent request for money from the EU was related to remediation of contaminated land.

"We noted Polish media reports about higher radiation levels in Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland. According to their information, this happened after the destruction in May of depleted uranium ammunition at a warehouse in the city of Khmelnitsky. London had sent it to Kiev earlier. Obviously, Kiev’s Western sponsors will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They do not care about the threat posed to the health and lives of the local people, even if part of Ukraine or Poland becomes a new exclusion zone.

It is worth noting in this context, that the Polish authorities asked the European Commission for 1 billion euros to increase Ukrainian grain transit via their country. It cannot be ruled out that such an impressive sum is required, among other things, for the reclamation of contaminated lands."

But don't worry - Russia has no intention of ever using nuclear weapons - they are simply a deterrence against western political stupidity.

Russia has a 'no first use' nuclear weapons policy - but USA retains it's first use option and has used nuclear weapons before  - on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Russia has long argued that all sides should embrace the "inadmissibility" of the use of nuclear weapons.

"From a political perspective, it’s of principal importance that Russia and the US calm the rest of the world and pass a joint statement at a high level that there can be no victory in a nuclear war and therefore it is unacceptable and inadmissible," Lavrov said.

Lavrov recalled that the leaders of the US and the Soviet Union had earlier made such statements. "We do not understand why they cannot reconfirm this position now. Our proposal is being considered by the US side," Russia’s top diplomat said.
Tass June 11 2019

"We would like to note that the incumbent US administration’s representative has responded negatively to the official Russian proposal made in October 2018 to pass a bilateral statement confirming the unacceptability of nuclear war which is not winnable, and which should never be unleashed...

The US refusal to accept the Russian proposal seems hardly surprising against the background of Washington’s line of reducing the nuclear threshold and its active implementation of military programmes highlighting the dangerous and absurd US intention to wage a nuclear war and to win in nuclear conflicts."
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova 10 December 2020

"Question: After your statement about the possibility of a nuclear war, of the third world war, the whole world is asking: is there a real risk of that happening?

Sergey Lavrov: ...This is not the first time I note how skillfully the West twists what Russia’s representatives say.

I was asked about the threats that are currently growing and about how real the risk of the third world war is. I answered literally the following: Russia has never ceased its efforts to reach agreements that would guarantee the prevention of a nuclear war. In recent years, it was Russia who has persistently proposed to its American colleagues that we ...adopt a statement reaffirming that there can be no winners in a nuclear war, and therefore it must never be unleashed.

We failed to convince the Trump Administration...However, the Biden Administration agreed to our proposal. In June 2021, at a meeting between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and US President Joseph Biden in Geneva a statement was adopted on the inadmissibility of a nuclear war. Let me stress: this was done at our initiative.

In January 2022, five permanent members of the UN Security Council adopted a similar statement at the highest level, also at our initiative: there can be no winners in a nuclear war. It must never be unleashed.

...After I said this, I urged everyone to exercise utmost caution not to escalate the existing threats. I was referring to the statement made by President Vladimir Zelensky in February that it had been a mistake for Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons and it was necessary to acquire them again. There was also a statement made by the leadership of Poland about their readiness to deploy American nuclear weapons on their territory, and much more.

Somehow there were no questions from the media about the statements made by Vladimir Zelensky and Poland. Or after the statement by Foreign Minister of France Jean-Yves Le Drian, who said suddenly: Let us not forget that France also has nuclear weapons. This is what I was talking about.

When Western journalists take words out of context and distort the meaning of what I or other Russian representatives actually said, this does them no credit.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov 1 May 2022

"We had to refute repeatedly the insinuations about Russia’s potential use of nuclear weapons during the special military operation in Ukraine. This is a deliberate lie.
Russia firmly adheres to the principle that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it must never be unleashed.

Last year, we managed to persuade the United States and then the entire Nuclear Five to reaffirm their commitment to this principle. A relevant top-level joint statement with the Americans was adopted on June 16, 2021. The leaders of the Five issued a top-level statement to this effect on January 3, 2022"
Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova 6 May 2022

"Against this background, speculation is spreading in the media about the alleged use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in the special military operation or the readiness to use chemical weapons. All of these information gibberish are lies.

From a military point of view, there is no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve its goals. The main purpose of Russian nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack. Its use is limited to extraordinary circumstances as defined in the Russian guideline documents, which are open to public inspection."
Sergei Shoiguv  Russian Minister of Defence 17 August 2022



"As for Russia, President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials have said on numerous occasions that we have a doctrine on the Basic Principles of the State Policy of the Russian Federation on Nuclear Deterrence. It is a public document and clearly sets out everything in this connection. I suggest that you take another look at circumstances under which we would use nuclear weapons, which are absolutely clearly outlined."
Sergey Lavrov 25 September 2022

Coming back to President Putins September 21 address to the nation,  the speech also contained the Russian response to the threats by irresponsible western politicians and military figures to attack Russia with nuclear weapons:

"Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means, and subsequently deprived of political, economic, cultural and any other sovereignty and ransacked.

They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.

I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff."
Vladimir Putin 22 September 2022

The President is responding specifically and direct to those advocating a nuclear attack on Russia. Importantly, he is reminding warmongers that Russia will defend "our people" (which includes Russians in Ukraine) with (1) the full might of Russia's conventional military machine, and (2) hypersonic missiles. I believe this is the main message, and nuclear weapons are not really the main point, as neither USA or Russia will ever use them, for obvious reasons. President Putin reminds everyone that Russia's doctrine on use of nuclear weapons is clear. Part of their document is quoted below. (I have omitted the section on their deterrence concept) The (publicly available) doctrine document says:

"17. The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.

18. The decision to use nuclear weapons is taken by the President of the Russian Federation.

19. The conditions specifying the possibility of nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation are as follows:

a) arrival of reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

b) use of nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against the Russian Federation and/or its allies;

c) attack by adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions;

d) aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy."

Very clear, very specific, and are outlined in clause 19. If NATO (USA really) uses nuclear weapons on Russia then that is a clear case of 19 (b). Nuclear attack on Russia invites a nuclear response. That is hardly surprising.

The western press, of course, childishly refer only to the final few sentences of President Putins response to the wests proposal to 'nuke Russia'. They entirely leave out the fact that the option of using nuclear weapons is only in response to a western nuclear attack. They deliberately leave out the fact that the reply is directly replying only to those deranged NATO Dr Strangeloves who propose such criminality.

The press frame the comment (trimmed of all context) as a generic threat to use nuclear weapons against the west. In other words, they are deliberately misleading their audience.

So who are these "high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries" who threaten to use nuclear weapons on Russia?

"After the special military operation began, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said publicly that Russia must remember that France has nuclear weapons too. That statement was not provoked in any way. We never as much as mentioned this subject. It was Vladimir Zelensky who started speaking about it. All of you remember what Liz Truss said when asked if she would be ready to push the nuclear button."
Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation 25 September 2022

There's your answer.

Related: Mutually Assured Destruction - the Prelude to Mutually Assured Security

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