Hold My Nukes

Russia’s much discussed “offensive” in Ukraine either didn’t materialize or, at best, didn’t accomplish much.

There’s been no obvious shift in the frontlines, and as far as anyone can tell, the situation is every bit the intractable, blood-soaked quagmire it was three months ago, when Volodymyr Zelensky presented Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris with a battle flag signed by soldiers defending Bakhmut against wave after wave of suicidal assaults from the Wagner Group’s motley crew of former prisoners and mercenaries.

Russia still doesn’t control Bakhmut, apparently, a testament not just to Ukrainian grit, but to the sheer tragic futility of the broader war, which is now destined to be remembered as one of the 21st century’s most dubious and violent events. Bakhmut has very little, if any, strategic significance for either side. But countless people have died to control it.

My disdain for Putin‘s Russia (as distinct from Russia the country which, contrary to Putin’s czarist delusions, does exist independent of any autocrat or strongman) is no secret, but I do try to be objective about matters around which objectivity is possible. It’s not tenable to debate who started the conflict — all “NATO expansion!” propaganda aside, you either invaded a country or you didn’t. And Putin did, just like Bush Jr. did.

But there’s no use claiming Russia is losing a war it isn’t losing just because you don’t care for the Kremlin. Fortunately for those of us who don’t care for Putin, Russia isn’t winning the war. They’ve struggled mightily in this conflict. It’s always worth reminding ourselves that Western military analysts generally believed Russia would seize Kyiv within a week or two. Three weeks to control the capital would’ve been viewed at the Pentagon as a sign of poor planning, execution or both. It’s been 13 months and Russia can barely control the Donbas, some of which it controlled prior to the full-scale war. In that respect, the invasion is a failure — so far.

That, I think, is the lens through which we should view Putin’s threat to saddle Alexander Lukashenko with a cache of tactical nukes. Putin isn’t gifting the weapons to Lukashenko (so, technically he isn’t violating any non-proliferation promises), he’s just demanding Lukashenko hold onto to them for a while. That’s a lot like your boss showing up at your house with a trunk full of assault rifles — “Hi, Jim. Good to see you. Do you have any spare room in your closet?” (Putin says Lukashenko wants them.)

In any case, this isn’t actually new, although you wouldn’t know it from most media outlets’ reporting. Putin publicly suggested putting nukes in Belarus last year, and there’s no telling how many times he’s suggested it privately. He was more specific over the weekend about the logistics and the potential timetable, though.

10 of Lukashenko’s warplanes are apparently outfitted for Moscow’s nukes, and Belarus can complete a storage facility for the warheads by early summer, Putin indicated.

Naturally, he employed a bit of trademark Russian “Whataboutism.” “The United States has been doing this for decades,” he told state television. “[America] has long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allies.”

There’s little use in debating that point — or any other point, really. This is just more nuclear saber rattling to distract from a conventional war that isn’t going well. The US treated it as such. “We haven’t seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture,” an official said.

Meanwhile, for all the talk of domestic solidarity, the Kremlin doesn’t seem especially confident about public opinion in Russia. Bloomberg reported over the weekend that Putin is trying to sign up 400,000 recruits on a contract basis.

Authoritarian regimes don’t generally ask, they tell, so if Putin is indeed trying to avoid another mobilization announcement, it suggests he’s concerned about potential voter disaffection ahead of next year’s sham election. Of course, you can’t lose a sham election — that’s why it’s a sham — but the optics around phony ballots in autocracies run the gamut from superficially plausible (e.g., Erdogan) to abject farce (e.g., Lukashenko). Abject farce territory entails an almost wholesale rigging of the vote, which dictators masquerading as democratically-elected leaders would rather avoid if they can.

Putin claimed over the weekend that he can outlast the West’s resolve when it comes to arming Ukraine. That may be true, but it’s far from obvious Russia can outlast Ukraine‘s resolve to fight, and therein lies the problem. The US military, a vastly superior operation to Russia’s, never succeeded in completely quelling insurgencies in Iraq, and the Taliban is now back in power in Kabul. None of those adversaries were receiving aid from an international coalition of economic and military powerhouses. Even if the US and its allies stopped arming and funding Ukraine tomorrow, Putin would still be tasked with conquering and occupying a country that doesn’t want to be conquered and occupied, something he’s already failed at once (i.e., during the first month of the invasion).

Objectively speaking, it’s extraordinarily difficult to see how this ends well for the Kremlin. In a far-fetched scenario where the Russian military manages to install a puppet regime in Kyiv (and I should reiterate that although that was the base case a year ago, it’s now more of a Kremlin pipe dream), such a government would be under perpetual threat of violent uprisings. And not the sort of “color revolutions” Putin so despises. Rather, real, organic, homegrown insurgencies carried out by heavily-armed former soldiers.

Defeat on the battlefield is, I assume, considered a total non-starter in Moscow, and there’s no “off ramp” unless China can somehow convince Zelensky to permanently cede the Donbas, which isn’t going to happen. Using a tactical nuke is a non-starter too. Don’t delude yourself. If Putin detonates a nuclear weapon of any size (and note that “low-yield” is a misnomer) in Ukraine, the West would have to react.

During a Sunday interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation,” John Kirby said the US has seen “no indication” that Putin has “any intention to use nuclear weapons, period, inside Ukraine.”

In explaining the threat to station nukes in Belarus, Putin cited the prospective delivery (from the UK) of depleted-uranium munitions to Ukraine. Those two things aren’t comparable, to put it mildly. As Kirby noted in the same interview, “There is no radioactive threat from depleted uranium rounds [which] are common on the battlefield.”

For its part, Ukraine lamented the plight of Belarusians who are “a hostage of the Kremlin” and whose future is now tethered to Putin’s. Kyiv called for an emergency Security Council meeting, which is pointless because Russia sits on the Security Council. Ukraine would like very much for that to change.

“Where is multilateral diplomacy when you need it?” Dmytro Kuleba wondered last week, while calling again from Russia’s removal. “What is the purpose of having an array of rather costly international organizations when they do not fulfill their two key tasks — preventing wars and stopping them once they erupt?”

He went on: “It’s not the first time the world is asking these questions.”