The Russian president’s move sought to bolster his faltering military, while China urged the Kremlin to de-escalate
By
Evan Gershkovich, Thomas Grove and Alan Cullison
Updated Sept. 21, 2022 12:07 pm ET
MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the threat of a nuclear response in the conflict and ordered reservists to mobilize, an escalation of the war in Ukraine as Moscow seeks to buttress its army’s flagging manpower and regain the offensive following stinging losses on the battlefield.
“Russia will use all the instruments at its disposal to counter a threat against its territorial integrity—this is not a bluff,” Mr. Putin said in a national address that blamed the West for the conflict in Ukraine, where he said his troops were facing the best of Western troops and weapons.
The speech is the clearest sign yet that seven months into the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II, Russia is unable to counter Ukraine and the West, which has largely united in the face of the Russian invasion. It also raises the stakes for Ukraine’s backers, which have sent billions of dollars of military aid since the beginning of the conflict.
Without providing evidence, Mr. Putin said top officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had said that it would be acceptable to carry out nuclear strikes on Russia. He also blamed Ukraine for strikes against the nuclear-power plant in the Zaporizhzhia region, which has been occupied by Russian troops since near the start of the war.
“To those who allow themselves such statements, I would like to remind them, Russia also has many types of weapons of destruction, the components of which in some cases are more modern than those of the countries of NATO,” said Mr. Putin.
In his speech, Mr. Putin cast the partial mobilization—Russia’s first since World War II—as a response to what he called a decadeslong Western plot to break up Russia. He repeated false accusations that the West had stirred rebellion inside the country’s borders, armed terrorist rebels in the Muslim-dominated south, arranged a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and transformed Ukraine into an “anti-Russian bridgehead, turning the Ukrainians themselves into cannon fodder.”
The bellicose address to the nation comes after officials in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine on Tuesday announced plans for Russia to annex four regions in the country’s east and south. The move would allow Mr. Putin to describe a Ukrainian offensive on that territory as tantamount to an attack on Russia.
“He has been pushed into a corner and his only hope is to demonstrate resolve and readiness for escalation to compel the Ukrainians to sit down at the negotiating table,” said Abbas Gallyamov, a Russian political analyst and a former speech writer for Mr. Putin. “I don’t think he believes in victory any longer. He wants to show Ukrainians that victory will be too expensive and it’s better to negotiate.”
Shortly after Mr. Putin’s speech, China urged the Kremlin to de-escalate.
“We call on the parties concerned to achieve a cease-fire and an end to the war through dialogue and negotiation, and find a way to take into account the legitimate security concerns of all parties as soon as possible,” said Wang Wenbin, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “We also hope that the international community will create conditions and space for this.”
A mural depicting Russian soldiers near a stop sign in Moscow.
A poster at a bus stop in Moscow with an image of Uncle Sam and the slogan, ‘Don't be a puppet in other hands!’
Western leaders expressed their resolve to continue supporting Ukraine despite Mr. Putin’s threat.
The partial mobilization and annexation of parts of Ukraine are “an admission that [Mr. Putin’s] invasion is failing,” U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said in a tweet Wednesday. “No amount of threats and propaganda can hide the fact that Ukraine is winning this war, the international community are united and Russia is becoming a global pariah.”
Mr. Putin has sought to avoid a full mobilization of troops, fearing that the broad support for the war could become fragile once average Russians are forced to serve.
While both state-run and independent polls show that most Russians support the war, the enthusiasm has been more subdued than eight years ago, when Mr. Putin ignited the conflict with Ukraine by seizing the southern peninsula of Crimea and announcing its annexation to great fanfare in a Kremlin ceremony.
In its mobilization efforts, the Kremlin has so far taken a calibrated approach, avoiding a widespread call-up that would be a shock to Russian society.
A woman in her damaged apartment following a missile strike in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine.
A residential building that was damaged after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine.
The decision, however, is likely to silence nationalist critics of Mr. Putin’s approach, which has seen him stop short of declaring war.
“Nuclear signaling is directed to the West and Ukraine, but it’s also meant to satisfy radical domestic critiques that are turning into a serious opposition,” said Dmitry Adamsky, a Russian expert at the School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel.
He also said that Russia is particularly vulnerable at the moment given Ukraine’s momentum on the battlefield and the amount of time Moscow needs to get its mobilized force in place.
“We are in a very dangerous window between the announcement of mobilization and when they can enter the battlefield in an effective way. During this window the only leverage Putin has is nuclear coercion,” said Mr. Adamsky. “I think the likelihood of Russian nuclear use is still very low, but we have never been so close.”
In his 15-minute speech, Mr. Putin stressed that he was ordering only a partial mobilization of troops by calling up active reservists and specialists whose military experience was needed to support what the Kremlin calls a “special operation” in Ukraine.
But speaking on state television shortly after Mr. Putin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu appeared to prime the Russian population for a protracted war.
“I cannot help but emphasize that today we are at war not only with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army, but with the collective West,” Mr. Shoigu said.
He said the draft would amount to 300,000 reservists who would be deployed to help secure the territories Russia is occupying, but that students would be excluded. Mr. Shoigu also gave the Defense Ministry’s first accounting of its losses in Ukraine since March, saying that 5,937 Russian troops had died in battle. That is far lower than estimates by Western governments that as many as 15,000 Russian troops have been killed.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia was at war ‘not only with Ukraine and the Ukrainian army, but with the collective West.’
According to text of the decree published on the Kremlin website shortly after Mr. Putin’s announcement, the draft is in effect starting Wednesday. It said that contracts for reservists and soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine will be automatically extended until the end of the partial mobilization period, or indefinitely.
The decree doesn’t say whether Russia will close its borders amid the partial mobilization, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that would be clarified in comments to reporters Wednesday.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of the lower house of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, said Wednesday that the first in line for the draft would be privates, sergeants, corporals and midshipmen who are 35 and younger, and that they would first undergo military training before being deployed.
“Several new formations and units will be formed, which will primarily be designed to protect the state border, as well as to create operational depth,” Mr. Kartapolov told the Interfax news agency.
Moscow raised the specter of unconventional weapons just days after Russia invaded its smaller neighbor on Feb. 24, warning the West to avoid interfering in the war and threatening that any attempts to meddle would lead to disastrous consequences. The references to nuclear weapons in Wednesday’s speech could be saber rattling or a signal that the losses in Ukraine justify a nuclear response.
“All our weapons systems, including the nuclear triad, are fulfilling their tasks,” said Mr. Shoigu.
A Ukrainian soldier on a destroyed armored personnel carrier in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine
Destroyed houses and cars in Izyum, in northeastern Ukraine, which was recently recaptured from Russian forces.
Experts have disagreed about the vague wording of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, published in 2020. While Russia has said it would use the weapons if its very existence were under threat, many experts say nuclear weapons could be used to end a conventional war on Moscow’s terms.
President Biden over the weekend urged Mr. Putin not to use chemical or nuclear weapons, saying it would change the face of the war and that the U.S. would respond depending on the extent of their use. Mr. Biden renewed calls to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine in his speech to the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.
While Mr. Putin’s nuclear threats appear aimed at the West as much as Ukraine itself, analysts of the Russian military say Moscow could use a tactical nuclear weapon on the battlefield to affect the outcome of the war. Such weapons have smaller warheads meant to affect less territory than an intercontinental missile.
“Any decision by Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons would be catastrophically stupid,” said Matthew Harries, director of proliferation and nuclear policy at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
“The nuclear threat has been taken seriously from the outset, but you have to combine taking it seriously with not being intimidated by the mere mention of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Though Moscow still has an array of conventional tools at its disposal, including a broader mobilization or the use of nonnuclear nonconventional weapons like big bombs, Moscow’s nuclear capabilities could be harnessed for a variety of ends. A strike over the Black Sea could be used to signal Moscow’s intentions. A battlefield strike could have more dire implications, while a strike on Kyiv could be launched to compromise the political and military leadership’s desire and ability to continue to fight.
Russia has used nuclear-capable weapons with conventional warheads in Ukraine several times in an attempt to test its suite of arms. The mayor of the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, which is also Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, said nuclear-capable hypersonic Kinzhal missiles were used earlier this month to blow up a dam and caused massive flooding in the area.
Rescuers worked following a recent strike on a dam in the city of Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine.
Last month, Mr. Shoigu said the missile was crucial to Moscow’s strikes against important targets.
“It is impossible to detect or intercept,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
Mr. Putin on Wednesday also said financial resources should be freed to boost arms production at Russia’s sprawling defense industries.
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