Surge in nuclear brinksmanship cannot regain Russia’s position of strength

Russian RS-24 Yars nuclear missile complex (NATO reporting name: SS-29) paraded in the Red Square in 2024. Photo: Getty Images

The accumulation of setbacks in Russian economic, military, and foreign policies this spring has reached such a scale that the pattern of deadlocked war is beginning to shift toward the prospect of defeat.

The Russian economy—a key parameter in the war of attrition—has shifted from stagnation to recession, and the government cannot chart a course to alter this trend (Forbes.ru, May 18).

The spike in oil prices caused by the turmoil in the Gulf has failed to deliver extra revenues for mitigating the crisis in state finances, not least because of devastating Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure (The Moscow Times; Novaya Gazeta Europe, May 22). Persistent Russian assaults in the Donbas “kill-zone” yield no territorial gains and bring casualties so heavy that the system of commercial recruitment cannot produce manpower sufficient for replenishing them (Re: Russia, May 19). Only one instrument is available to Russian President Vladimir Putin for dispelling the specter of defeat and reasserting his claim for concluding the war with a decisive victory: nuclear weapons (RIAC, May 21). He has duly brought them into play, but the outcome of his new resort to brinksmanship is disappointing and disturbing.

The first move in the sequence of threats was Putin’s announcement on May 12 of the test launch of the Sarmat (RS-28) heavy intercontinental missile (President of Russia, May 12). Mainstream media tried to put maximum spin on this test, barely mentioning that the missile was first presented back in March 2018 as ready for deployment and resolutely ignoring several failed tests, including the one in November 2025 (Izvestiya; Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 12). Technical data showed that the test was originally planned for May 8–9 and was intended to offset the negative impression left by the abbreviated Victory Day parade on Red Square (The Moscow Times, May 7; see EDM, May 11). The delay has never been explained, nor has the oddity in the official announcement been clarified, which focused on the successful launch but omitted the usual sentence about the warheads’ arrival at the designated square at the Kura test range in Kamchatka. The indifference of Western reactions, however, was noted (RIA Novosti, May 16).

The follow-up move was to stage an exercise with tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Warheads (most likely dummy) were transported from Russia (not from storage in Asipovichy) and installed on the Iskander missiles (The Insider; Izvestiya, May 22). The purpose was not to emphasize nuclear threats to Ukraine but rather to aggravate pressure on the Baltic states (Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 21). Several drone incursions have triggered alarms in many cities in the region, including Helsinki, and caused the breakdown of the ruling political coalition in Latvia, which Moscow saw as a sign of weakness, ripe for being exploited (Kommersant, May 14). The issues with Ukrainian drones targeting the oil terminals in Primorsk and Ust-Luga and being misled by electronic countermeasures are presented in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius as unfortunate but manageable, while Russian threats are resolutely rejected as unacceptable (Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 19; Radio Svoboda, May 23).

The next and most far-reaching act of brinksmanship was the exercise of strategic forces described, unlike the usual formula of testing the readiness, as preparation for actions under the threat of aggression (Rossiiskaya gazeta, May 19). The scope was announced as larger than the standard exercise, usually held in October, with eight strategic submarines expected to be involved. The real content, however, was entirely routine: one launch of the Yars intercontinental missile and one launch of the Sineva missile from the Delta-IV-class strategic submarine (Meduza, May 19). The involvement of some non-strategic assets, such as the air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missile, was supposed to reinforce the message to European North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states. The timing of the exercise, exactly during Putin’s visit to Beijing, was hardly a coincidence (Novaya gazeta Europe, May 20). The deepening dependence upon the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is embarrassing for the war-degraded Russia, so a reminder about its strategic might was necessary (TopWar.ru, May 22). PRC President Xi Jinping showed the usual friendliness but did not appear to be impressed by the nuclear show, and the project of utmost importance for Putin—the Sila Sibiri-2 (Power of Siberia-2) gas pipeline from the Yamal fields connected to the European market—remains in the planning stage (Carnegie Politika, May 22). A tour of an art exhibition, featuring a large picture of Xi at the center and a rather humbled Putin a step behind, added to the Russian leader’s humiliation (RBC, May 20).

The urge to intensify the nuclear posturing demanded a further step. The pretext was found in the alleged Ukrainian drone strike on a student dormitory in Starobilsk, Luhansk oblast (Izvestiya, May 22). Putin announced a “proper” retribution, and on Sunday night, the third strike by the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile was delivered on Bila Tserkva, in the same mode as strikes on Dnipro on November 20, 2024, and on Lviv on January 8 (Rossiiskaya gazeta; Nezavisimaya gazeta, May 24). Kyiv was also targeted in a massive missile attack, which has only reinforced Ukraine’s resolve to redouble the degradation of Russia’s war machine by long-distance strikes on its energy infrastructure, such as the oil terminal in Novorossiysk, and by middle-strikes on the logistics and command centers of Russia’s Rubicon command operating the drone capabilities (Istories media, May 22; The Moscow Times, May 23).

Upsurges in Russia’s demonstrations of nuclear might are usually followed by pauses, when Putin tries to gauge the effects of his brinksmanship. This time, however, he became disappointed fast because Ukraine refused to be awed and deterred from targeting Moscow in new attacks aimed at fueling fears in the Russian populace and deepening discontent with the unwinnable war in its polity. The recognition of the uselessness of nuclear instruments for breaking the pattern of Russia’s degradation is equal for Putin to an admission of complete failure, so Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called U.S. State Secretary Marco Rubio on May 25 to convey the threat of more massive strikes on Kyiv (Kommersant, May 25). The execution of this plan may be postponed to maximize psychological pressure and deliver a major blow on the eve of the NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, scheduled for July 7–8. This nuclear obsession does not exactly fit the pattern of repeating the same action and expecting different outcomes. Each time Putin resorts to nuclear blackmail has a different combination of means, so the risk of triggering a disaster is increasing. Firm rejection and more investment in deterrence capabilities remain the best answer.