Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine declaring that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.
Putin’s endorsement of the new nuclear deterrent policy comes on the 1,000th day after he sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
It follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied longer-range missiles.
The signing of the doctrine, which says that any massive aerial attack on Russia could trigger a nuclear response, reflects Putin’s readiness to threaten use of the country’s nuclear arsenal to force the West to back down as Moscow presses a slow-moving offensive in Ukraine.
It’s hard to say what’s appropriate. A lot of people feel like that’s already the appropriate move, given their hugely successful election interference, assassinations abroad, continual war crimes, nuclear sabre rattling, allying with rogue nations, and the resulting destabilization of the global power dynamic. How do you deal with that if not regime change? Putin was so sure that regime change was an American aim that he made it a necessity. Paranoid Russian dictators and self-fulfilling prophecies, name a more iconic duo.