The widespread belief that Russia, as a nuclear power, cannot lose its aggressive war against Ukraine is outdated and false.
This is stated in an article for the online publication Desk Russie by Andreas Umland, a German political scientist, analyst at the Stockholm Center for East European Studies and author of the book "The Spreading Nationalist Contagion in Russia". He believes that this belief is based on erroneous strategic assumptions and ignorance of history.
Few Western politicians openly support the idea of Kiev's "victory" in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Most of them are content with vague promises, such as supporting Ukraine “for as long as necessary.” Such ambiguity about Russia’s aggressive war is based on the assumption that Ukraine will not be able to defeat Russia anyway. In fact, according to this argument, Ukraine could not even completely push Russian troops from its territory, and in fact should not try to do so.
Since Moscow possesses nuclear weapons, according to this logic, a Russian defeat in this war would be not only impossible, but even undesirable. To avoid humiliation, Russia would resort to using its nuclear arsenal. To avert this risk, according to this logic, it is necessary to sacrifice Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Having voluntarily given up its nuclear weapons in 1994, Ukraine was supposedly doomed to accept at least some of Russia's demands.
A wide range of voices - both within and outside academia - have directly or indirectly called on Ukraine to stop defending itself in order to prevent the outbreak of nuclear war. A few days after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, MIT professor Barry Posen - who had justified the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a preemptive war - predicted in March 2022: "If the Russian campaign starts to look like a military disaster, then nuclear escalation will come into play".
University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, already notorious for his positions, predicted before February 2022 that Russia would not attack Ukraine, and subsequently predicted a Russian victory. In late 2022, he warned the West not to push "a great power to the brink. Then Putin could resort to nuclear weapons". In early 2023, Harvard University’s Stephen Walt warned: “If Russia thinks it is losing and believes it is facing a catastrophic defeat [...], that should worry us all.”
Neither Ukraine nor the West, however, ever intended to inflict a catastrophic defeat on Russia—for example, by advancing Ukrainian troops all the way to Moscow. Ukraine is simply seeking to liberate those parts of its territory that Russia repeatedly recognized as Ukrainian before 2014, but which it has illegally occupied and annexed over the past twelve years. At the same time, President Volodymyr Zelensky is now ready not to even pursue victory in the war, in any form.
Since 2025, Kiev has explicitly stated that it would accept the current front line as a future line of contact under a ceasefire agreement. Ukraine could also agree to a partial ceasefire, such as a mutual cessation of all long-range strikes and/or a mutual cessation of attacks on shipping in the Black Sea. In doing so, Kiev is allowing for the possibility of a temporary loss of Ukrainian territory and sovereignty to Russia. Kiev would therefore accept a partial Russian victory if it paved the way for peace.
Furthermore, the history of international conflict shows that apocalyptic fears of a nuclear escalation by a cornered great power are unfounded. In the 1960s, nuclear-armed France lost a brutal colonial war in Algeria. Algeria - as is often forgotten - was not a typical overseas colony, but a fully annexed part of metropolitan France, home to about a million French people (settlers and Jews who had been granted citizenship in 1870).
The United States suffered humiliating defeats in Vietnam, as did the Soviet Union in Afghanistan; yet neither superpower attempted to prevent these defeats by nuclear escalation. China also lost the war in Vietnam, but it did not allow it to escalate—just as the United States refrained from such action when, like the Soviets before them, it failed in Afghanistan. In all these cases, when a nuclear power suffered a crushing defeat by a much smaller non-nuclear adversary, it did not press the "red button".
Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, and most of them are waging - or have waged - wars against countries that do not have them. Why then have these nuclear powers - ever since the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 - never again used this weapon of mass destruction to achieve their military goals? Why have they not even made convincing threats to use it - if we exclude the propaganda "rattling of weapons" by Russia after 2014?
In parallel with the development and spread of nuclear weapons after 1945, global thinking about them has also changed. The heated international debates about the global consequences of nuclear war - and the ensuing "nuclear winter" - have led to the emergence of an unspoken global taboo on the use of nuclear warheads.
Of course, nuclear weapons continue to play a key role in the national security planning of many countries, serving as a last resort for deterrence and national defense in the event of an existential threat. Meanwhile, there is now a widespread understanding of the strategic futility and moral irresponsibility of using nuclear weapons to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
The belief in the power of this taboo has become so great that some non-nuclear-weapon states have even attacked nuclear powers. For example, in 1973, Egypt and Syria - neither of which possessed nuclear weapons - attacked Israel, even though it was widely known that Israel already had a nuclear arsenal by that time. In 1982, Argentina, a non-nuclear state, went to war with Britain, a nuclear power, to regain the Falkland Islands.
The situation regarding Ukraine’s perception of the Russian nuclear factor appears somewhat different. From the very beginning of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine (which began with the invasion of Crimea in February 2014), officials in Moscow have repeatedly – and quite openly – threatened to use nuclear weapons. After the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, these scare tactics have become not only more aggressive but also more frequent.
In 2024, Russia demonstratively changed its nuclear doctrine to lower the official threshold for nuclear escalation. Moscow’s apocalyptic rhetoric since 2014 has made a strong impression in Europe and the United States. Combined with other factors that contributed to the West’s hesitation to support Ukraine, the Kremlin’s nuclear threats played a role. Western governments delivered weapons to Ukraine reluctantly and with considerable delay, in limited quantities, and with numerous restrictions on how they could be used.
In Ukraine itself, however, Russia’s numerous nuclear signals went largely ignored. Kiev consistently crossed Moscow’s so-called "red lines". For example, in 2024, the Kursk region witnessed the first ground invasion of internationally recognized Russian territory since World War II. This event was followed by large-scale drone attacks on Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as increasingly systematic destruction of strategic targets deep inside Russian territory. Some of these attacks, carried out on recognized Russian territory, were carried out using Western weapons, such as British "Storm Shadow" cruise missiles.
These incursions call into question Russia's new nuclear doctrine, which is supposedly aimed at lower thresholds for intervention. In 2024, Putin said: "We will consider the possibility (of a nuclear response) when we receive reliable information about the mass launch of air and space attack vehicles and their passage across our state border." Nevertheless, Ukraine has conducted - and continues to conduct - increasingly large-scale drone operations on Russian territory. Ukraine ignores both the Kremlin's official nuclear doctrine and the alarmist warnings of its propagandists.
Ukraine's offensive self-defense has not yet threatened world peace, despite the high level of verbal escalation by Russia. Kiev's strategy is based on considerations that are more rational than the West's instinctive fear of a Russian nuclear strike. Given the Kremlin's extreme Ukrainophobia, Kiev has no illusions that ethical considerations would deter Moscow from violating the nuclear taboo. However, Moscow would be exposing itself to significant risks if it launched nuclear strikes to hold illegally occupied foreign territory - rather than to defend its own territory from external encroachment.
It is difficult for Putin and his inner circle to assess the cumulative consequences of an unprecedented violation of international law - as well as the informal rules, norms and customs of international relations - brought about by the use of nuclear weapons. Added to these unpredictable risks is the inevitable reputational damage: many observers would perceive a Russian nuclear escalation as a sign of weakness, not strength. It would demonstrate that a massive great power is incapable of conventionally defeating a much smaller, non-nuclear, medium-sized state.
The net balance of strategic gains and losses for Moscow from detonating one or more nuclear warheads in Ukraine would be unpredictable. Unless Kiev capitulates completely, Moscow risks losing more than it would gain from such an escalation. Given the resilience Ukraine has demonstrated so far, the country will not surrender even after a nuclear strike. The rest of the world, including many non-Western countries, would be shocked by Russia’s violation of the nuclear taboo, which would cause many countries to rethink their relations with Moscow.
In contrast to the unpredictable consequences of a nuclear escalation, Moscow has already achieved considerable success through its verbal threats. Although the Ukrainians have not succumbed to these demonstrative gestures, Russia’s nuclear rhetoric has caused serious damage to Kiev: alarmed Western governments have reduced their aid in response to the Kremlin’s rhetoric – and continue to do so. It is no coincidence that "the rattling of nuclear weapons" from Moscow often reaches its peak at times when the West is discussing new arms supplies to Ukraine.
The curious thing is that a real nuclear escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine could develop in a scenario quite different from the one feared by many in the West. In 2024, Mariana Budzherin, a historian specializing in nuclear issues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out in the authoritative publication "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" that the Kremlin may feel encouraged to use nuclear weapons not to avoid humiliation in Ukraine, but - on the contrary - when it already has a military advantage.
Just as in 1945, the advancing American forces decided to drop atomic bombs on a nearly defeated Japan, Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons to turn the situation on the battlefield - which is already favorable to Russia - into a quick and complete victory.
If Russia were to break the nuclear taboo in such a scenario, it would undoubtedly face the global political consequences already mentioned above. "But the price", Budzherin points out, "could be borne more easily by a victorious Russia than by a defeated one." Western countries, she writes, might refrain from imposing severe military consequences on Russia if it seemed that the cause of Ukraine was lost anyway. "Condemnation from China would matter less to Russia, which had won its war in Europe," Budzherin continues. Finally, "Russia's use of nuclear weapons would inevitably make a strong impression on NATO capitals and allow Russia to shape the broader postwar European order to its advantage."
Both the West's fear of Russia as a nuclear superpower and the fear of a Russian nuclear retaliation in the event of a defeat in Ukraine are based on flawed assumptions. Over the past eight decades, nuclear-armed states have repeatedly lost wars of intervention and have even been attacked by non-nuclear states.
If nuclear escalation - should Russia's aggressive war in Ukraine fail - is indeed likely, or even inevitable, why hasn't a similar scenario played out in previous cases where an interventionist power has been militarily cornered by the victim of its own invasion? Following this logic, Russia itself should start climbing the ladder of nuclear escalation as early as 2022, instead of just talking about it.
Decisions about the scope, nature, and duration of support for Ukraine should not be dictated by vague concerns or strategic shortsightedness. Instead, they should be guided by concern for the victim of criminal aggression, by solidarity among democratic nations, and by the fundamental interest in preserving the foundations of international order.
Moscow may have no moral qualms about detonating a nuclear warhead over Ukraine, but the experience of the past eight decades suggests that such an escalation is unlikely. As long as the Kremlin is convinced that the global response to a possible Russian nuclear adventure would be decisive and would lead to devastating consequences for Russia, Moscow will continue to refrain from taking such an uncertain step.
Source: news.bg