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Russo-Ukraine War

Is Russia Changing its Nuclear Doctrine to Affect its War in Ukraine?
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

Is Russia Changing its Nuclear Doctrine to Affect its War in Ukraine?

Last updated 07:05 AM EDT • Read time: 6m

Dennis S. Nelson

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According to several articles,[1], [2],[3] Russia, since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine, is transitioning its nuclear posture from a traditional defensive deterrence model toward offensive nuclear deterrence and intimidation.  According to this concept, Russia’s nuclear weapons policy is moving beyond simple, basic deterrence, that is to preserve the status quo to prevent an enemy attack, to compellence/coercive deterrence, to force the enemy to surrender to one’s own wishes.  Russia’s goal would be to employ nuclear saber rattling in an effort to regain its sphere of influence in its near abroad, including Ukraine.

Russian views on Deterrence vs Coercion /Intimidation 

In a 2024 book, From Deterrence to Intimidation. Nuclear weapons, Geopolitics, Coalition Strategy, authors Dimitry Trenin, Sergei Avakyants, and Sergei Karaganov state that Russia must transition from traditional, defensive deterrence, to offensive intimidation, due to the situation in Ukraine. As a result of the loss of its Warsaw Pact allies and the loss of the Soviet Republics, especially, its core Ukraine, Russia lost what the authors characterize as Russia’s “deep strategic forward,” and that the only way for Russia to restore geopolitical balance is the change to an offensive nuclear policy of intimidation. These authors advocate that Russia should have an updated nuclear doctrine that is not be passive, but active, even proactive, in order to “expel/roll back the malign adversarial presence from regions critical to Russia’s security.”[4]

According to Trenin, Avakyants, and Karaganov, when Russia began its Special Military Operation in February 2022, it was carried out under Russia’s nuclear umbrella.  They claim that Putin clearly referred to nuclear deterrence when he warned the United States and its allies against direct interference in the conflict.  During the first part of the armed conflict, Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy proved partially successful because the U.S. feared Russia’s nuclear capabilities and tried to avoid a direct clash with its Russia.  However, they claim the U.S. had come to the conclusion that the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons was very low, and so American military assistance to Ukraine during the conflict was ramped up gradually, with the U.S./NATO supplying F-16s, ATACMS, and acquiescing with Ukrainian deep strikes on Russian bases hosting nuclear capable strategic bombers.[5]

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The Credibility of Threatening Offensive Coercion relies on the Capability of Achieving Escalation Dominance 

Russian Colonel A.A. Bartosh, writing in Military Thought,[6] the military-theoretical journal of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, contrasted deterrence, which he defined as the preventing the enemy from taking undesirable actions, with coercion, which he described as forcing the enemy to change a potential or actual course of action.  He showed the distinction as follows:

  • The objective of defensive deterrence is to prevent enemy action, by denying the enemy’s escalation dominance.
  • The objective of offensive deterrence is to coerce enemy action, by establishing one’s own escalation dominance.

Colonel Bartosh acknowledged that coercion/offensive deterrence is more complex than defensive deterrence.[7]  This is consistent with the beliefs of Western deterrence theorists, who state that the credibility of protecting other interests under offensive deterrence is much lower than the easier task of protecting one’s own territory with defensive deterrence. [8]

Can Russia achieve escalation dominance?

In order to attain escalation dominance, a nation must have superiority at each rung of the escalation ladder, which neither the U.S. nor Russia enjoy, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Escalation Advantages

Russia has superiority only at the theater nuclear level, and the U.S. is striving to narrow Russia’s advantage by:

  • Replacing the American primary theater nuclear weapon, the B-61 gravity bomb, with the more capable B-61-13.
  • The deployment a low-yield variant of the W76 warhead (the W76-2) on the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, to support theater level nuclear objectives.
  • The initiation in 2024, of a program to procure a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N).

France and the United Kingdom are also seeking to enhance the credibility of their nuclear forces.

At the conventional level, the U.S./NATO has overwhelming superiority, which can serve as a deterrent to a Russian threat to escalate to employ theater nuclear weapons against Ukraine.   According to numerous sources,[9],[10],[11],[12] the U.S. sent back-channel messages to Russia that any employment a of nuclear weapon against Ukraine would be met with severe convention retaliation, to include the introduction of NATO forces in Ukraine and a massive conventional attack on Crimea, including against the Black Sea Fleet.

Conclusion 

In spite of speculation that Russia is changing its nuclear doctrinal orientation from defensive deterrence to offensive deterrence by employing nuclear saber rattling in hopes of gaining a favorable outcome in its war with Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO have ample nuclear and conventional forces to oppose this.  The U.S., France, and United Kingdom have sufficient theater nuclear forces to counter a Russian nuclear threat. 

Even though that the Trump administration has been less supportive of Ukraine than the previous Biden administration and would be less likely threaten U.S. conventional retaliation to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, Russia cannot know with certainty that this will not happen.  It turns out that President Trump has become more militarily assertive than candidate Trump (e.g., Venezuela, Iran).  President Trump has recently also become more critical of Putin, has come to doubt Putin’s commitment to peace.  Trump has taken more aggressive anti-Russian actions such as sanctioning Lukoil and Rosneft, and approved the seizure of ships of Russia’s shadow fleet.  The recent performance of the U.S. conventional attack on Iran in Operation Epic Fury should serve as a serious warning to Russia about wanting to engage with the U.S. if it elected a conventional response to a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine.  

MAJ Dennis S. Nelson (U.S. Army, ret.)

Notes:

[1] Arseny Sivitsky and Alexander Taranov, Russia Transitions to Nuclear Intimidation, in Russia’s Nuclear Posture in 2025 and Beyond, The Jamestown Foundation, 18 Dec 2025, https://jamestown.org/special-report-russias-nuclear-posture-in-2025-and-beyond/

[2] Polina Sinovetsa and Muhammed Ali Alkış, Deterrence, Compellence, or Credibility Fatigue? Russian Nuclear Threats in the War on Ukraine, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament 2025, Vol. 8, No. 2https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2025.2586386

[3] Polina Sinovets, Nuclear posturing in Russia’s war with Ukraine: “offensive deterrence” in progress, in War changes everything: Russia after Ukraine, Feb. 1, 2023, pp. 27-38, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep47336.9

[4] Dimitry Trenin, Sergei Avakyants, and Sergei Karaganov, From Deterrence to Intimidation. Nuclear weapons, Geopolitics, Coalition Strategy, 2024

[5] Dimitry Trenin, Sergei Avakyants, and Sergei Karaganov, From Deterrence to Intimidation. Nuclear weapons, Geopolitics, Coalition Strategy, 2024

[6] A.A. Bartosh, Deterrence and Coercion in Hybrid Warfare Strategy, Military Thought, No 9, 2021

[7] A.A. Bartosh, Deterrence Acquires Different Shades, Military Thought 6 July 2023

[8] Polina Sinovetsa and Muhammed Ali Alkış, Deterrence, Compellence, or Credibility Fatigue? Russian Nuclear Threats in the War on Ukraine, Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament 2025, Vol. 8, No. 2https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25751654.2025.2586386

[9] Joseph M. Siracusa, Massive conventional attack': The US has told Russia 'through back channels' what America would do if Putin uses tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, 22 May 2023, SkyNews.com.auhttps://www.skynews.com.au/insights-and-analysis/massive-conventional-attack-the-us-has-told-russia-through-back-channels-what-america-would-do-if-putin-uses-tactical-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine/news-story/02047a613a3b687bba713492540142a2

[10] David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper,  and Julian E. Barnes, U.S. Makes Contingency Plans in Case Russia Uses Its Most Powerful Weapons, New York Times, 23 March 2023,

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/us/politics/biden-russia-nuclear-weapons.html

[11] Alexander Smith, U.S. warns Russia of 'catastrophic' consequences if it uses nuclear weapons, NBC News, 26 Sept 2022

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-catastrophic-consequences-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-us-warns-rcna49365

[12] Emily Sakzewski, What would happen if Russia used a nuclear weapon in Ukraine?, ABC News, 11 Oct 2022

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-12/what-if-russia-uses-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine-nato/101476586

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