DISINFO: Russia has the right to nuke Ukraine and NATO
SUMMARY
In a phone call, President Putin assured his counterpart Trump of the inevitability of a Russian response. Moscow also released information about the use of American explosives in Ukrainian terrorist attacks on Russian railways. Both steps are merely a pretext or a smokescreen. The real message is that Moscow is presenting Trump with two choices: either accept responsibility for the attacks, or accept Moscow's uncompromising position, expressed indirectly in the Istanbul talks: Russia will fight to victory or until the US accepts all its demands. Moscow will do whatever it deems necessary against Ukraine. Otherwise, it will already have sufficient justification to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO countries, and the responsibility for any potential nuclear escalation will fall squarely on Trump.
RESPONSE
This is a pro-Kremlin disinformation claim rooted in the instrumentalisation of fear and escalation rhetoric portraying Russia as forced into war and escalation.
Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This invasion was part of a long term strategy to exercise dominance over a sovereign neighbour that dates back to the 2014 Maidan revolution. Moscow instigated escalation at every stage of the war, culminating in its claim that Russia 'has the right' to strike Ukraine and NATO countries with nuclear weapons if its demands are not fully met.
Threatening nuclear use as a form of political leverage is itself a violation of international law, and an attempt to blackmail the global community to accept Russia's many illegal annexations and military aggression. Moreover, pre-emptively blaming someone else for any future use of nuclear weapons is an intimidation tactic and a blunt distortion of reality. The responsibility for use of nuclear weapons lies solely with the party issuing the attack. There is no such thing in international law, norms or value as being provoked into launching a nuclear war.
Russia has been making nuclear threats for a long time. These threats include the deployment of atomic weapons in Belarus, video simulations and suggestions of nuclear attacks on Western capitals broadcast on Russian TV, a change in Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold of using atomic bombs, and a failed test of a ballistic missile designed to transport nuclear heads. See our article
See similar cases that West provokes Russia into nuclear warfare, plans to use nukes against China later, that Poland should be the target of the Russian nuclear strike as it has to pay for Ukrainian deaths, and that change in Russia's nuclear doctrine is a direct response to NATO aggression.