Editorial
Putin’s Russia flirts with nuclear catastrophe
Cinema audiences have flocked to see Oppenheimer, a blockbuster about the US government’s Manhattan Project, which gave birth to nuclear weapons during the 1940s.
The movie, which chronicles the life of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer – dubbed the father of the atom bomb – has reportedly taken $US400 million ($596 million) worldwide, making it a box office hit. As the Herald’s Garry Maddox reported last week, Oppenheimer has attracted bigger audiences to some Sydney cinemas than the feel-good Barbie movie released on the same day last month.
Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy plays the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Now, amid the Hollywood hype, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has delivered a repulsive real-world reminder of the modern-day threat of nuclear conflict.
Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on Sunday that Moscow would have to use a nuclear weapon if Ukraine’s ongoing counter-offensive targeting Russian forces within Ukraine was a success. Ukraine’s military is attempting to retake territory that Russia has unilaterally annexed since invading last year.
In a social media post, Medvedev said: “Imagine if the ... offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success and they tore off a part of our land. Then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia. There would simply be no other option.”
Medvedev’s threat reveals how desperate the Kremlin has become in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, which has exposed serious deficiencies in Russia’s conventional military capability.
His remarks also underscore the rogue status of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. It is an increasingly malevolent international presence.
Unfortunately, the spectre of a nuclear conflict over Ukraine is not new.
Soon after Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s nuclear arsenal was put on high alert. There have been several thinly veiled threats about the use of nuclear weapons since.
The conflict has also resulted in regrettable nuclear proliferation. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close Putin ally, has abandoned his country’s status as a non-nuclear weapon country to host Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Lukashenko said in June that Belarus had started taking delivery of the weapons, some of which he claimed were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. It is the first time Moscow has deployed nuclear warheads outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Financial Times recently reported that according to “Western and Chinese officials”, China’s President Xi Jinping has personally warned Putin against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. This suggests China remains concerned about the possibility of a nuclear escalation.
When US President Joe Biden was asked last month about the threat of a nuclear escalation in Ukraine, he claimed there was “no real prospect” of Putin resorting to nuclear weapons. But Medvedev’s comments cast some doubt on these reassurances. No one can be sure what a desperate Putin will do should he face a devastating Russian defeat in Ukraine.
Other nuclear-armed powers, especially Beijing and Washington, must do all they can to deter Putin from taking the nuclear option.
The Kremlin’s recklessness has delivered a terrifying setback to the cause of nuclear arms control and has pushed the world closer to nuclear disaster.
The “Doomsday Clock”, run by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, symbolises the heightened threat. Earlier this year the minute-hand on the clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight – the closest it has ever been to a nuclear catastrophe.
A statement by the Bulletin said this was done “largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine”.
Medvedev’s latest disgraceful remarks are a reminder that a nuclear escalation of the Ukraine conflict by intention, accident or miscalculation, is a real risk.
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