5 Reasons Why Russia is Unlikely to Use Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine

After Russia hit the city of Dnipro with an intermediate-range ballistic missile, experts once again started talking about nuclear escalation. One of the main questions now is whether this escalation could lead to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia. On the one hand, it is very difficult to give a precise answer. The decision to launch a nuclear strike will surely be made by Vladimir Putin personally, and after the attack on Ukraine, it has become pointless to predict his actions from the point of view of logic and common sense. On the other hand, if the decision is still made on the basis of reasonable arguments, there will be several reasons not to use tactical nuclear weapons. Here they are. 

1. The course of the war will not change

The greatest fear that Russia would use tactical weapons was in the fall of 2022, when the Russian army was retreating on several fronts. “There was a point in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a real risk that tactical nuclear weapons would be used,” CIA Director William Burns said this September. 

However, both in the first year of the war and now, experts say that a tactical nuclear strike would not have a serious impact on the course of hostilities. 

Targets for such strikes could be large enemy formations concentrated in one place or large ammunition and equipment depots, but even in 2022 it would be difficult to find such targets, said Dr. Michael J. Frankel, one of the leading US nuclear weapons researchers. When used on the front line, a tactical nuclear strike can only create a breakout capability over a small area — no more than 1 to 1.5 kilometers. However, at least two problems arise in this case, Frenkel notes. First, the command would have to send troops into the contaminated territory, and second, a successful breakthrough would require a large grouping, which would be difficult to assemble given the shortage of soldiers. 

“There are no purely military tasks that nuclear weapons can solve,” Pavel Podvig, head of the Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces project, explained to IStories. — “Of course, you can destroy, for example, an airbase with one powerful strike instead of hitting it with several missiles, but it will not affect the situation on the front as a whole.” 

It should also be understood that a nuclear strike can be tactical or strategic not only depending on the power of the charge, but also on the place and purpose of use. For example, the power of the American bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was 15 and 21 kilotons, i.e. in terms of power these strikes can be classified as tactical (up to 100 kilotons). However, the U.S. had a strategic objective — to inflict a heavy psychological blow to the enemy and force him to surrender. Such attacks lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians; the Russian leadership is probably not ready for such a step, Podvig believes. 

2. There will be a retaliatory strike by the West

In the fall of 2022, the United States threatened Russia with “catastrophic consequences” if it used tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made this claim three times in one day in different television interviews. 

According to New York Times sources, the Biden administration discussed the possibility of several strikes with conventional weapons against Russian military facilities, such as where the Russians launched a tactical nuclear missile. An option discussed was for the USA to provide Ukraine with the weapons needed for retaliatory strikes. 

“A US-led NATO retaliatory strike would have destroyed all Russian conventional forces that we detected and identified on the battlefield in Ukraine and Crimea, as well as all ships in the Black Sea,” former CIA director David Petraeus said. Western missile strikes on Russian units in Ukraine could dramatically change the course of the war, said Jakub Janda, director of the Prague-based think tank European Values Center. 

Even if the US does not use its nuclear weapons in response to a tactical nuclear strike on Ukraine, the risk of escalation remains, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists wrote. Powerful attacks with Western weapons would mean that the US and NATO would enter the conflict. In that case, we can expect a Russian response at NATO military facilities in Europe and even in the United States from submarines in the Atlantic Ocean. “A conventional response is a viable policy option that seeks to maintain some control over escalation while acknowledging the need to respond [to a Russian strike on Ukraine],” the analysts wrote. 

3. Russia will lose its allies

What could be most painful for Russia is the loss of China’s support. That country’s leadership has opposed the possible use of nuclear weapons throughout the war. The last time this happened was after the change in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, when Beijing called on all sides to calm, restraint and search for ways to de-escalate. According to Financial Times sources, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has also warned Putin against using nuclear weapons in a private conversation. 

Almost all modern electronic components for the production of missiles and other weapons Russia now gets from China, recalls Jamie Shea, a former deputy adviser to the NATO Secretary General. These are either Chinese products or Western products going through China to evade sanctions (how exactly China is helping Russia evade them, IStories wrote earlier). “Russia’s military campaign is increasingly dependent on China. If it halts its supplies, Moscow’s ability to wage war in Ukraine will be severely compromised. Therefore, it is hardly possible for Russia to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine without Beijing’s approval or acquiescence,” Shea said. 

Another important Russian ally, India, has also opposed the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken noted that China and India’s stance helped deter Putin from launching a tactical nuclear strike. India is helping Moscow evade Western restrictions on oil trade — Russia supplies fuel by “shadow fleet.” This summer, India became the largest importer of Russian oil. In September, along with China, 11 other countries signed a statement calling for refraining from the use of nuclear weapons, including Turkey and representatives of the “Global South” such as Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. 

4. Russia can contaminate territory it considers its own. And even internationally recognized

Compared to accidents at nuclear power plants, radioactive contamination of terrain after the use of tactical nuclear weapons is not as severe. Its main hitting factors are the shock wave and light radiation, explains a Russian nuclear physicist who requested anonymity. 

“A nuclear bomb exploded once, the dust settled, then we looked at what happened there with radionuclides in remote areas, went into the epicenter, assessed the consequences, and that was it. After the accident at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl the reactor was burning for nine days. Chernobyl’s radionuclide emissions are compared to several hundred bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” said Olena Parenyuk, a senior researcher at the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. 

Nevertheless, depending on where a nuclear charge explodes (on the ground or in the air) and the strength of the wind, contaminated particles can spread more than 100 kilometers in a narrow sector, according to Nukemap, an online simulator of nuclear explosions. Therefore, populated areas not only in occupied lands but also in internationally recognized Russian territories could be in the contamination zone. 

A tactical nuclear strike on the surface is much more dangerous than an explosion in the air. In this case, the soil is contaminated, and radioactive particles may enter water bodies. After the only combat use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in history, the level of radiation there decreased in a few months, and people began to return to the destroyed cities. Full-scale reconstruction of Hiroshima, which had suffered more than Nagasaki, began in 1949. 

5. Ukraine may retaliate by hitting Russian nuclear power plants

So far, Ukraine has denied reports from the Russian side about AFU strikes on the Kursk nuclear power plant. During the offensive in the Kursk region, the Ukrainian army did not even try to seize the nuclear power plant, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. However, if Russia strikes Ukraine with tactical nuclear weapons (especially if there are many casualties), the AFU strikes on Russian nuclear facilities cannot be ruled out. Since it will not be possible to destroy the Ukrainian army with a tactical strike, it will still have the capability to retaliate. 

There are nine nuclear power plants on Russian territory, where Ukrainian drones have flown during the war. Four of them — in Smolensk, Kursk, Novovoronezh and Rostov — are located within the range of long-range American ATACMS missiles. The closest to the front line is the Kursk NPP, a doubler of the Chernobyl one. The Kursk NPP is vulnerable to air attacks because its reactors are not covered by protective hoods, and the plant has no protective systems mandatory for more modern plants, said nuclear physicist Andrei Ozharovsky. The reactors are vulnerable not only to missiles and drones with large amounts of explosives, but also to large-caliber artillery shells. Ozharovsky calls the risk of a repeat of the Chernobyl accident real.

“The old power units of the Kursk NPP have reactors of the so-called Chernobyl type - without a solid vessel. <...> All this is immersed in a cube of graphite. This design is more vulnerable to external attacks,” said Alexei Anpilogov, a nuclear energy expert. The vulnerability of the Kursk NPP was also noted by IAEA head Rafael Grossi, who visited the plant after the start of the AFU operation in Kursk Oblast.