Russia’s Updated Nuclear Doctrine Isn’t a Blueprint for Weapons Use. Its Primary Value Is Manipulation.

After months of anticipation, on November 18, the Kremlin unveiled its latest nuclear doctrine, outlining the conditions under which it might resort to nuclear weapons use. Last updated in 2020, the doctrine appears to lower the threshold for nuclear use by introducing sovereignty-based conditions beyond the previous requirement of existential threat to the state.

This update follows a pattern common among nuclear powers in creating ambiguity around nuclear use conditions, a long-standing feature of nuclear deterrence. What distinguishes Russia’s approach is its repeated nuclear saber-rattling and efforts to sow transatlantic divisions through intimidation. Equally concerning is its expansive and fluid interpretation of what constitutes a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. The revisions are noteworthy in several key areas. They view sovereignty as encompassing not just state authority but internal regime stability, freedom from external political interference, and more; and they treat territorial integrity with deliberate elasticity by, for example, explicitly including Belarus under Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Through these changes, Russia has created a calculated spectrum of potential nuclear responses that forces adversaries to contemplate the possibility that even actions that fall well short of threatening Russia’s existence as a state could lead to a worst-case scenario.

The Timing

Russia seemed to be framing its conditions for nuclear use to protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty months prior to the update’s release. In May, Russia conducted a nonstrategic nuclear weapons exercise in the Southern Military District, explicitly aimed at preparing its forces to “unconditionally ensur[e] the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials.” The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reinforced this message. 

The key changes were first outlined by President Vladimir Putin at a September meeting of the Russian Security Council’s committee on nuclear deterrence. During the meeting, Putin framed the changes as a necessary response to evolving military and political threats posed by NATO and heightened Western military support for Ukraine. He explicitly stated, “The use of nuclear forces is the last resort measure to protect the country’s sovereignty.” He also implied that Russia would integrate Belarus into Russia’s nuclear strategy.

The timing of the release of the updated nuclear doctrine sparked widespread speculation that it was tied directly to U.S. actions, namely President Joe Biden’s administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with the long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). In reality, the update was already underway, though Russia may have rushed to release it after the ATACMS announcement. Such a scramble may explain why Russia did not invoke the typical nuclear threats over use of ATACMS. Instead, the updates signal Russia’s intent to contemplate nuclear use if cumulative Western military support were to enable significant territorial losses, consistent with its rhetoric throughout the war with Ukraine. 

The Updates

In the wake of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, Putin’s September remarks foreshadowed the majority of the changes. Rather than introducing entirely new principles or establishing clear use thresholds, the updates sprinkle ambiguous and elastic concepts of sovereignty-based redlines—from border protection to territorial integrity—throughout the document. In addition, the doctrine deliberately echoes language from both historical Russian documents and the policies of other nuclear weapons states, including the United States, the UK, and France. If criticized, Russia could point to these parallels with Western nuclear policies to argue that its approach reflects common international practice rather than exceptional behavior. This “whataboutism” is a consistent feature of Russian diplomatic messaging.

Four key changes stand out in the new doctrine.

First, the update reflects Putin’s emphasis on sovereignty by modifying the conditions for nuclear use to include conventional attacks that create “a critical threat to [Russia’s] sovereignty and/or territorial integrity.” This vague formulation replaces the 2020 doctrine’s more restrictive language of threats to “the very existence of the state.” Now, Russia views sovereignty as encompassing not just state authority but internal regime stability, freedom from external political interference, economic autonomy, and control over its information space.

Historically, existential threats in nuclear doctrine have referred only to scenarios threatening state survival, such as a large-scale invasion or an imminent nuclear attack. In contrast, the inclusion of sovereignty and territorial integrity widens the spectrum of potential threats and significantly lowers the threshold for nuclear use. An attack need not threaten state survival to potentially trigger a nuclear response. For example, while Ukraine seizing Kursk would violate Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, it would not come close to threatening Russia’s existence as a state—but under the new doctrine, it could be a condition for nuclear use. Notably, the doctrine does not explicitly address whether these conditions apply to the four Ukrainian provinces Russia illegally annexed in 2022, though Moscow has asserted elsewhere that they are part of its territory.

Another of the expanded conditions revolves around the threat of a decapitating strike on Russian leadership, an issue that has long preoccupied Putin. Specifically, the update provides conditions for launch-on-warning scenarios that include the “receipt of verified information regarding a large-scale launch (takeoff) of aerospace attack systems” such as cruise missiles, drones, and other “aerial platforms” crossing Russia’s borders. The doctrine also explicitly authorizes nuclear response if weapons of mass destruction are deployed against Russian military forces or installations operating beyond Russia’s borders.

Second, the doctrine integrates Belarus into Russia’s nuclear strategy, effectively treating conventional and nuclear attacks on Belarusian sovereignty as equivalent to attacks on Russia itself. This update corresponds with Russia’s alleged deployment of nonstrategic nuclear weapons to Belarus.  A related update pertains to the centralized control of nuclear weapons. Such control, carried out by the Twelfth Main Directorate of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, implies that despite the physical presence of nuclear weapons in Belarus, Moscow retains exclusive decisionmaking authority over their use. In this sense, Russia’s arrangement with Belarus bears some similarities to NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements, where the United States maintains nuclear weapons in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Türkiye) while retaining command and control authority. The updates about Belarus clarify its role as both a beneficiary of Russia’s nuclear umbrella and a forward staging area for deterrence purposes.

Third, Russia’s updated doctrine introduces a new potential trigger for nuclear response: aggression against Russia and/or its allies by any nonnuclear state with participation or support from a nuclear state will now be considered a joint attack. This provision, reportedly proposed by Putin, appears designed to deter Western military aid to Ukraine by framing such support as a potential justification for nuclear escalation. The language draws from a pledge made by France, Russia, the UK, and the United States in 1995 that nuclear-armed states would not use or threaten nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states unless such states acted in concert with a nuclear power in attacking. The inclusion of this language  is far from coincidental—it is a frequent tactic of mirroring that Moscow utilizes to deflect criticism from its own actions.

Finally, the updated doctrine increases the catalog of what Russia considers military dangers that might necessitate a nuclear response. These include the expansion of military coalitions and the proximity of their infrastructure to Russian borders, actions aimed at isolating Russian territory by blocking vital transport links, attacks on ecologically hazardous sites that could lead to man-made disasters, and large-scale military exercises near Russia’s borders. The addition of “anti-satellite warfare” to an existing provision on the militarization of outer space is interesting, considering U.S. alarm over potential Russian nuclear-capable anti-satellite weapons as well as Moscow’s expressed concern about U.S. programs related to these capabilities. Each of these dangers corresponds with the update’s increasingly elastic redlines. 

Russian Use and Abuse of Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity

Although the changes in doctrine may appear significant, they are not fundamental deviations from long-standing Russian policy. Sovereignty and territorial integrity have been staples in Russian military and security policy, appearing consistently across major doctrines and official statements.

There is a strong possibility that the classified documents underpinning prior nuclear deterrence policies contained language similar to the latest updates. Up until 2020, Russia’s nuclear use documents were confidential, with previous versions issued in 1999 and 2010. The 1999 doctrine, approved by then president Boris Yeltsin, reflected a Russia grappling with significant economic and military weakness following the Soviet Union’s collapse. Its approval coincided with NATO’s first post–Cold War expansion, as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland had joined the alliance just days earlier. Statements from Russian officials and secondary sources suggest that the language in the 1999 classified doctrine bears notable similarities to the 2024 update, especially around sovereignty and territorial integrity. The 2010 update coincided with the signing of the Military Doctrine, which references the existence of the classified documents but does not expand on the contents. According to a source from the Russian Security Council, the 2010 version specified that “the conditions under which the Russian Federation would resort to the use of nuclear weapons have been defined. The primary condition is a threat to the loss of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state.”

The update also is consistent with provisions in Russia’s 2014 Military Doctrine and 2021 National Security Doctrine. The former frames sovereignty as protection against both conventional and hybrid threats, with nuclear forces central to deterring aggression. The latter broadens sovereignty to include political, economic, and informational dimensions, emphasizing nuclear and nonnuclear deterrence as essential for safeguarding territorial integrity. Notably, both documents include language that mirrors the 2024 update on not only conditions for nuclear use but the main dangers and risks to Russia.  

More generally, sovereignty and territorial integrity occupy a central role in Russian political and legal thought. Russia’s contemporary understanding of sovereignty draws from the work of Soviet legal theorists such as Grigory Tunkin, who conceptualized it as internal authority over territory and population and independence from foreign interference. Contemporary Russian strategists such as Andrey Kokoshin refined this concept to justify Russia’s assertion of “real sovereignty,” essentially the ability to counter perceived Western encroachments on its political, economic, and military autonomy. Similarly, Vladislav Surkov’s “sovereign democracy” infamously weaponized this concept to frame challenges to the Kremlin’s authority as attacks on Russian sovereignty. The 2010 and 2014 Military Doctrines reflected Surkov’s conflation, with the latter identifying “subversive information activities . . . undermining historical, spiritual and patriotic tradition” as threats to state sovereignty.

Considering Russia’s flagrant violation of Ukrainian and Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity, this emphasis on sovereignty may seem strange. In particular, while vigorously defending its own sovereignty against perceived NATO encroachment, Russia has methodically undercut Ukrainian territorial integrity through the annexation of Crimea, the orchestration of separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk, and direct full-scale military invasion.  Sovereignty, for Russia, is a concept as elastic as it is instrumental, used defensively to shield its regime and offensively to justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of its neighbors.

In essence, by casting violations of sovereignty and territorial integrity as grounds for potential nuclear use, Russia appears to aim less at actual escalation and more at deterring adversaries through the perception of heightened risk.

Manipulating Nuclear Risk

Ultimately, the updated doctrine serves primarily as a tool of declaratory policy and signaling—it shapes perceptions without explicitly committing Russia to specific courses of action. In essence, it aims to deter adversaries from testing Russia’s resolve by keeping the potential costs of miscalculation prohibitively high. Moreover, the update aligns with Russia’s efforts to stoke fear in European capitals to fracture the tenuous transatlantic unity over Ukraine. 

This strategic ambiguity serves multiple purposes. First, it allows Russia to frame a broader range of actions—from Western military aid to economic sanctions—as potential triggers for a nuclear response without explicitly committing to escalation. Second, it enables the regime to conflate threats to its political survival with threats to state sovereignty, effectively using nuclear deterrence to shield internal stability. Third, by introducing uncertainty about escalation thresholds, Russia increases the perceived risks of any confrontation.

Yet the document nevertheless reflects Russia’s genuine strategic vulnerabilities. For example, attacks on command-and-control systems or leadership could destabilize crisis management, increasing the likelihood of rapid escalation, including nuclear use. The evolution of precision-strike capabilities exacerbates these fears by presenting scenarios where conventional weapons could achieve strategic objectives once reserved for nuclear missions.  These concerns, reflected in Russia’s military doctrines over decades, highlight genuine dangers that transcend the ambiguity of its rhetoric. More broadly, Moscow’s nuclear posturing must be understood within this broader context of its perceived asymmetry with its adversaries; Russian leadership views NATO, the EU, and the United States as more powerful.

Ultimately, Russia’s actual nuclear employment decisions would likely not involve Putin carefully parsing doctrinal clauses. The doctrine’s primary value lies in its manipulative function—shaping adversary perceptions and calculations rather than providing a precise blueprint for nuclear use.