President Vladimir Putin updated Russia’s nuclear doctrine, two days after United States President Joe Biden granted Ukraine permission to attack targets inside the country with US-made weapons.
Under the updated doctrine issued this Tuesday (19), Moscow will consider aggression by any non-nuclear state — but with the participation of a nuclear country — a joint attack on Moscow.
The Kremlin claims that the revised military doctrine would, in theory, lower the bar for the first use of .
In a phone call with reporters later on Tuesday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the changes mean that “the Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression using conventional weapons against it and/or the Republic of Belarus”.
A , but the review appears to expand the definition of what would be considered aggression against the country.
“An important element of this document is that nuclear deterrence aims to ensure that a potential adversary understands the inevitability of retaliation in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation or its allies,” Peskov reported.
The move comes as Putin responds to the Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use powerful American long-range weapons inside Russia, a move that .
