Putin’s change to Russia’s nuclear doctrine is a message to America

By Dmitry Suslov, member of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, deputy director of World Economy and International Politics at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, and Valdai Club expert.

Updating Russia’s nuclear doctrine is certainly not a spontaneous step. It is long overdue and is linked to the fact that the current level of atomic deterrence has proven inadequate. Especially given that it failed to prevent the West from waging a hybrid war against our country.

Until recently, the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on us was considered insane and impossible, given that Russia is a nuclear superpower. But it turns out that it is taken seriously in some minds in the West. That is why the current level of nuclear deterrence has proved inadequate in the face of the US-led bloc’s growing involvement in the conflict against Russia, which has…