Very real danger

In 2022, the Kremlin was on the verge of a nuclear strike on Ukraine

Launch of a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile, which can also be equipped with nuclear weapons

(Bild: AFP)

At the end of 2022, Russia was apparently on the verge of using nuclear weapons against Ukraine. As revealed by US media, the USA was already "rigorously" preparing for this possibility. Not a hypothetical danger: intercepted, strictly confidential communications gave cause for concern.

In the fall of 2022, Russia was cornered in the conflict with Ukraine: Ukraine made major territorial gains in its counter-offensive in eastern Ukraine. Moscow's biggest spoils of war - occupied Kherson - were in danger of being recaptured by Ukraine. The tide seemed to have turned: Reason enough for the Kremlin to consider using nuclear weapons. 

A damaged residential building in Kherson in November 2022

(Bild: AFP)

Biden warned of first use of a nuclear weapon since 1945
The New York Times reported that intercepted, highly confidential communications indicated that Moscow was seriously considering turning threats of a nuclear strike into an actual plan at the time. In October 2022, even the US President Joe Biden told party colleagues about this possibility - it would have been the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis that a nuclear attack would have been threatened if the situation had remained the same. Biden would have been talking specifically about the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese cities were attacked by the USA in 1945.

Conventional weapons were being discussed as a countermeasure
Government working groups were already discussing a possible response to this possibility. A countermeasure would not have had to involve nuclear weapons, but it was believed that a drastic response would have been necessary - such as a direct strike on the Russian nuclear weapons unit with conventional weapons.

US official: risk "was not just hypothetical"
"That's what the conflict has made us realize. I think it's our right to prepare rigorously and do everything we can to avoid that," a senior US official told CNN. The risk "wasn't just hypothetical, it was based on some intelligence we had gathered," a second government official added: "We had to plan so that we were in the best possible position in case this no-longer-unthinkable event actually happened."

At the time, Russia was spreading propaganda that Ukraine allegedly possessed a "dirty bomb". This narrative could have been used to justify a Russian nuclear strike, US officials suspected. The risk of Russia using nuclear weapons is by no means averted: "It is entirely possible that we will be confronted with this growing danger again in the coming months," reported sources from the US government.