Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s decision to boast about new tests of nuclear-capable weapons systems this week is his latest strategic effort designed to dissuade Western support for Ukraine.
Putin called the 9M730 Burevestnik missile, which is a nuclear-powered cruise missile, “a unique weapon that no other country possesses,” while the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, Valery Gerasimov, said it flew more than 8,600 miles during a 15-hour test flight on Oct. 21.
“The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik missile effectively allow it to be used with guaranteed accuracy against highly protected targets at any distance,” Gerasimov said, adding that during the test, the missile conducted maneuvers “demonstrating its high capabilities in evading missile and air defense systems.”
Putin also said this week that the military successfully tested a Poseidon nuclear-powered super torpedo, which is purportedly capable of devastating coastal regions by triggering vast radioactive ocean swells.
This “is not the first time” Putin has tried “to demonstrate its force,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think that Putin will use nuclear weapons.”
This public display of force from the Russians came after President Donald Trump canceled his planned trip to Budapest to meet with Putin and his decision to impose new sanctions on Russian oil, and as he considers Ukraine’s pleas for Tomahawk missiles, which would allow for Ukraine to hit military targets far from the front lines.
“It’s a strategic PR message,” George Barros, an expert with the Institute for the Study of War, told the Washington Examiner, “specifically it’s a cognitive warfare undertaking, the purpose of the test and the purpose of him talking in excruciating detail about the minutia of the technical specifications and the fact sheet of these various different delivery vehicles is designed to elicit from the audience an emotional response and a psychological response, and principally an emotional and psychological response of fear.”
“The whole point of doing this is to convince the international coalition” that they shouldn’t support Ukraine anymore “out of reasons for fear,” he said. “Fear for what the Russians might do in Ukraine, fear for what the Russians might do in Europe, and fear for what the Russians might do against other things outside of Europe.”
Trump’s feelings have repeatedly shifted over the course of his second term, often taking turns laying the blame for its start and its continuation at the feet of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, as well as Putin and Zelensky.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin. For Putin to be saying either, by the way, you ought to get the war ended. A war that should have taken one week is now in its, soon, fourth year, that’s what you ought to do instead of testing missiles,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday.
Trump has tried offering both sides incentives and, at other times, pressuring them to end the war, but Putin has held out, demanding only that Ukraine agree to Russia’s war aims that it hasn’t yet achieved, as a part of the deal to end the war.
Trump also announced this week that he has directed the Department of War to “immediately” restart nuclear testing “on an equal basis” with other nations. The last confirmed U.S. conducted nuclear test was in 1992, and then later that year, former President George H.W. Bush announced a moratorium on underground nuclear testing.
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The wording of Trump’s directive was vague.
Responding to Trump’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “But I want to recall President Putin’s statement, which has been repeated many times: that, of course, if someone abandons the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly. Until now, we were not aware that anyone was testing anything.”
Barros said these were “more than saber rattling” because “these are just explicit threats in the hopes that he will be successful in deterring us from doing things that create significant problems with the Russians.”
Trump has said the U.S. won’t provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, weeks after saying he believed Ukraine could recapture all of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
Should Trump change his mind, one of the most prized targets Ukraine would look to hit is likely the drone production facility in Tatarstan, east of Moscow. This production facility was created after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and is meant to replicate the Iranian Shahed drones that Tehran gave to Moscow for use in Ukraine.
Taking out the entire production facility would be a more effective way to stop the persistent drone attacks that target various cities in Ukraine regularly.
On the battlefield, Russia has made progress near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk. After failing to topple the government in Kyiv amid its initial full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia refocused its attention primarily on the Donbas, the eastern region of Ukraine. Russia has since annexed those two regions, as well as two others, despite not controlling the entire area.
Barros acknowledged that Russia is close to capturing Pokrovsk, which it has been trying to overpower for about 18 months, saying it would likely only be a matter of months before Russia fully occupies the city.
Another aspect of Putin’s evolving strategy of trying to get the West to abandon Ukraine has involved several aerial incursions into European countries’ airspace. The Polish military said on Friday that its jets intercepted a Russian reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea for the third time this week.
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This is the latest such incident that has put European countries on high alert. The first in this series of incidents occurred when Poland identified a drone incursion of unprecedented size on Sept. 9. It wasn’t the first time Russian drones entered NATO airspace, but the number of drones was unprecedented, and it was the first time NATO forces shot down possible threats in allied airspace.
“I think Russia, by such action, tested European countries, tested NATO, tested how far the West, the Democratic part of the world, beneath Russia, [would] go,” Yermak added. “Aggressors never stop themselves. If nobody stops them, aggressors always go for it, and this is absolutely demonstration and testing. It’s my opinion.”
