Putin probably won't ever use nukes in Ukraine -here's why

Ever since the war started in Ukraine many have been worried that Putin might resort to using nuclear weapons in the country. In 2023 nuclear drills in Russia raised the worry that the conflict unfolding in Ukraine could ultimately lead Moscow to launch a nuclear strike against Ukrainian forces. But how likely is it that Vladimir Putin would use nuclear weapons to win his war against Kyiv?

As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues to escalate, many experts have feared that Putin would turn to his tactical and battlefield nuclear arsenal in order to regain the initiative in the war. However, there are several reasons why that might not happen, some of which might surprise you. 

If the world has learned anything from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine it's that the Russian military is not the well-equipped and well-trained force that most Western military analysts have feared since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

The Russian Armed Forces have performed poorly over the last nineteen months of war and revealed that much of its equipment was not properly stored or maintained during the last 20 years. 

From exploding vehicle tires to rotten AK-47s, nothing in the Russian arsenal seems to have been properly maintained—but does that also apply to the country's nuclear weapons?

Russia currently has a standing stockpile of 5977 warheads with about 1500 currently deployed according to the BBC News, and maintaining such a huge stockpile is difficult. 

The United States in 2021 alone spent $44.2 billion dollars on maintenance while Russia spent a mere $8.6 billion according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. 

How can a nation like Russia—which has far more nuclear weapons than the United States—keep its nuclear maintenance on a budget just one-fifth of its American competitor? 

There is some evidence that Russia’s nuclear weapons just don’t work. Back in November 2022, Putin tried and failed to test the country’s new Poseidon torpedo according to an unnamed US official. 

In December 2022, the Kremlin admitted to another failed missile launch, this time of its Bulava intercontinental missile. 

“It has been established," a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said,  "that the missile’s first two stages worked as normal, but there was a technical malfunction at the next, third, stage of the trajectory.”

Putin’s biggest problem with using a nuclear weapon would be choosing a target that could achieve his strategic goals, but the war in Ukraine has no real targets valuable enough to outweigh the negatives of dropping a nuke.

Escalating directly to using a larger bomb against a Ukranian city wouldn’t make strategic sense which leaves Putin with tactical battlefield nukes. But that choice has its own drawbacks. 

“The Ukrainian army is not concentrated enough in one location to merit so much striking power,” Axios journalist Robert Kelly noted, adding that “any meaningful Ukrainian military target can be sufficiently struck with Russian conventional weapons.”

“Even a small battlefield or tactical nuclear weapon – less than five kilotons in yield – would have massive destructive effects,” according to  Kelly. 

If Putin did decide to use a tactical or battlefield nuclear device it would almost certainly affect Russian troops, and that could be enough to turn off Moscow. 

The real worry for Putin isn’t picking a target or killing his own troops, it’s deciphering the major geopolitical blowback he might face if he decides to use nukes in Ukraine. 

“A nuclear strike – raising the terrifying prospect of normalizing nuclear weapons use in future wars – would scare even the most hardened anti-western regimes," Kelly noted. 

During a conference at the end of October 2022, Putin stated that he had no plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine despite his many warnings and red lines. 

“We see no need [to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine],” Putin said, “there is no point in that, neither political, nor military.”

During an interview with NPR's Greg Myre, defense and security expert Michael Bunn stated that he estimated a 10 to 20 percent likelihood that Russia would use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. 

"We have a 77-year tradition, some call it a taboo, of non-use of nuclear weapons. Russia is threatening that," Bunn said, “we need to do everything we can to maintain that tradition of not using nuclear weapons in combat."

European news outlet Euronews interviewed Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at Vienna’s Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation and former adviser to Russia's foreign ministry about the potential use of nukes by Russia in Ukraine.

When asked about the likelihood of Putin using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Sokov said that “If you mean using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, then the probability is very, very low. Of course, these days, anything can happen."

But Sokov added that “all nuclear signaling that has been done by Vladimir Putin and his associates since the beginning of the war has been directed at the West, at NATO, but not at Ukraine,’ which he viewed as a good sign nuclear weapons would not be used in Ukraine.