Putin will continue to threaten the West with nuclear weapons, SAB concludes

Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, anti-NATO statements have become part of the daily rhetoric of Russian officials. Some of the statements also include direct threats to the NATO alliance and its member states.

How Russia will shape its future relations with NATO can be influenced by a number of factors – Russia’s ability to renew its military forces and military industry; Russia’s economic situation and political considerations. Further development of NATO’s defense and deterrence capabilities is equally important.

According to publicly available information, since the start of the invasion, Russia has lost more than 315,000 soldiers, including dead and wounded. Ukrainian sources put Russian losses even higher at over 400,000 military personnel.

The significant losses of the Russian army are evidenced by the need for mobilization. In order to maintain the combat capabilities of the army, in September 2022, Putin signed a decree announcing partial mobilization. Soldiers were also attracted by representatives of “private” military companies fighting in Ukraine, for example, “Wagner Group” recruited soldiers in Russian prisons, according to SAB.

Mobilization in Russia continues in a covert manner, because this is the only way to compensate for the loss of manpower in Ukraine. With the continuation of the war and Russian losses, repeated “open” mobilization is not excluded. In announcing it, Russia’s leading elite will be guided by the situation at the front and the common mood in society.

SAB emphasizes that along with the loss of soldiers since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian forces have managed to destroy a significant amount of Russian armored vehicles, as well as aircraft and ships. The biggest losses of soldiers and equipment can be observed directly in the ground forces, while the Russian Navy and Air Force maintain relatively high combat capabilities.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine drags on, the importance of the military-industrial complex in maintaining the combat capabilities of the Russian forces is increasing. Russia has been able to adapt its production to war needs in the short term. As hostilities in Ukraine continue, Russia’s ability to renew and replenish its arsenal is expected to diminish.

Russia’s military-industrial complex continues to face workforce problems, especially highly skilled workforce, as well as challenges to motivate employees to continue working in high-intensity conditions.

Production capacities can be negatively affected by the wear and tear of the infrastructure used in production and the limited opportunities to access the components needed to restore the infrastructure’s operation. The redirection of the resources of the military-industrial complex to maintain the combat capabilities of the Russian army in Ukraine further limits the development and implementation of new military technologies, which in the medium term may increase the technological backwardness of Russian-made armaments from Western or Chinese-made armaments, SAB said.

The war in Ukraine and the resulting geopolitical changes in Europe have made it necessary for Russia to evaluate the suitability of the existing armed forces model. Already at the end of 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu issued a statement on the reform of the Russian Armed Forces, aimed at improving the command and control of the military forces and increasing the number of armed forces units and personnel to 1.5 million in 2026.

To the west, as part of the reform, on February 26, 2024, the military districts of Moscow and Leningrad, which had been united in the Western military district since 2010, were restored.

Taking into account the hostilities in Ukraine and the losses of Russian soldiers and equipment, it can be predicted with high reliability that Russia will face difficulties until 2026 to make actual changes in its armed forces and to fully form and equip existing and newly created units. However, this will not prevent Russia from creating an image of the progress of the reform of the armed forces in its public statements, SAB concluded.

Russian senior officials regularly come up with threats to use nuclear weapons, including linking them to the course of hostilities in Ukraine and the support provided by Western countries.

The threat of using nuclear weapons is more intensively used by Russian officials in cases when the Ukrainian army has succeeded in achieving success on the front, or when the political discussion in Western countries about providing new support to Ukraine becomes more active.

With the help of aggressive nuclear rhetoric, Russia also seeks to raise the level of anxiety in the societies of Western countries. The use of nuclear weapons would certainly provoke a negative international reaction even from countries that are currently neutral or friendly to Russia, such as China. The use of nuclear weapons would also further consolidate the West and could facilitate the delivery of new types of weapons systems to Ukraine.