Leaked Russian military files expose low threshold for nuclear strikes

The news: Classified papers show that Vladimir Putin’s forces have practiced using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power.

The numbers: According to the Federation of American Scientists, Putin controls around 5,977 nuclear warheads, compared with the 5,428 controlled by the US.

The context: Leaked documents seen by the Financial Times, describe the threshold for the country to use tactical nuclear weapons, which is lower than Russia has previously disclosed. The training scenarios described in the papers include a possible invasion by China. The collection of 29 Russian military files were written between 2008 and 2014, and describe a number of criteria for potential nuclear response, ranging from enemy incursion on Russian territory to the destruction of 20% of the country’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.

What they said: Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin told the FT: “This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain […] They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”