Proposals had been made to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine to allow for attacking any non-nuclear state that had the participation or support of a nuclear state, Putin said.
Proposals had been made to change Russia’s nuclear doctrine to allow for attacking any non-nuclear state that had the participation or support of a nuclear state, Putin said.
There is no reason to think Russia’s entire strategic nuclear arsenal is unusable. It’s entirely possible a decent chunk of it is due to corruption and neglect, but even if 10% work that’s still 160 city destroying nukes being detonated across Europe and North America if the world goes full MAD. That probably wouldn’t wipe out humanity but it would lead to hundreds of millions of people dying. Not something to be taken lightly.
There is absolutely no scenario in which 160 or even 16 cities are hit with anything Putin launches.
More than 30 capable nations, including the U.S. (who eclipses the rest combined) have been focusing their primary defense and intelligence efforts on countering Russia’s arsenal for the last 60 years. The most likely outcome of a nuclear attempt from Russia is that not even a single city is hit.
The only effective nuclear offense Russia has is fear-mongering about a nuclear offense.
Wishing something to be true doesnt make it so. I havent seen any credible assessments that Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal is so bad that it would be more that 90% non-functional. That’s an insane level of broken that there is just no reason to assume it.
Put another way, way more than 10% of their tanks, planes, artillery and tactical ballistic missiles work, why would you assume that their strategic nukes are significantly worse?
All of which isnt to say we should cower before Putin’s obviously empty nuclear threat, let Ukraine release the storm shadows! But to go from there to lol dumb Russians cant fire a single ICBM is just not credible.