Thread by @thetimes

🔺 EXCLUSIVE: Hours after President Putin put his nuclear forces on a “special” state of alert, several Russian submarines capable of carrying 16 ballistic missiles each sailed into the north Atlantic thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-…

Tracked by western militaries four weeks ago, the decision to send the submarines closer to European shores was seen by British navy chiefs as “posturing” and a warning, rather than an actual threat

They returned towards Russia shortly afterwards and normal levels of activity resumed.

Since then western intelligence agencies have kept a closer eye on the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal

While Russia’s use of “strategic” nuclear weapons of the sort carried by the submarines is still viewed by most observers as unthinkable, some analysts envisage a scenario in which shorter range, lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons are used instead
thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-…

With 4,447 nuclear warheads, Russia has the largest stockpile in the world.

Thousands of those are believed to be weapons that could be classed as tactical, in the sense that they are intended to devastate enemy targets in a specific area without causing widespread destruction

Depending on the yield, a tactical nuclear weapon can typically destroy a football stadium, whereas a strategic missile launched from a submarine, land-based silos or mobile launchers could take out a town or city

A western official said that the original narrative surrounding Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was to liberate the country rather than decimate it.

“However, the operation obviously is not going to plan,” he said

The official went on to point out that in Russia’s doctrine the use of tactical nuclear weapons was “seen as an option which will be used below a strategic nuclear threshold.”

🗣️ He added: “We’ve seen nothing so far to suggest that is something which is likely at the moment”

Pavel Podvig, one of the world’s leading experts on Russian nuclear forces, said that such weapons were not yet on their launchers.

🗣️“They are stored in special bunkers and we know these bunkers are normally at least a few km away from the airfields”

There is a procedure for deploying them.

It involves taking them out of bunkers, loading them on trucks, driving them to an airfield and then putting them in an area where they can be loaded on to aircraft ✈️

If they were fired from land platforms, the warheads would be driven to a position somewhere where they would be installed on to missiles.

“The fact is that if you are Russia you are never certain you can hide this process, you never know who is watching,” said Podvig

If Russia then decided to launch a nuclear weapon, the infrared heat signature it produced would be picked up by satellites.

Other intelligence systems would then quickly calculate the trajectory of the missile based on the telemetry or electronic signals it emanates

The western official said that there had been no sign in the conflict so far of any nuclear warheads being loaded on to missiles bound for 🇺🇦.

Although Nato has said that it would only ever use nuclear weapons in response to an attack, in the case of 🇷🇺 the policy is less clear

Read the full story 👇
thetimes.co.uk/article/putin-…