Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia April 19, 2022.
Vyacheslav Prokofyev | Sputnik | Reuters
WASHINGTON – Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to further upgrade the Kremlin’s arsenal of long-range nuclear-capable missiles in order to deter Kyiv and its powerful Western allies, U.S. officials warned Wednesday.
The warning from the nation’s top spymasters comes as Russia intensifies its now year-long fight in Ukraine and as Putin threatens to withdraw from a key nuclear arms treaty.
“Throughout its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has continued to show that it views its nuclear capabilities as necessary for maintaining deterrence and achieving its goals in a potential conflict against the U.S. and NATO and it sees its nuclear weapons arsenal as the ultimate guarantor of the Russian Federation,” the nation’s top intelligence agency wrote in its annual threat report.
The unclassified 35-page intelligence assessment adds that Moscow will become more dependent on nuclear weapons following significant battlefield losses and punishing rounds of sanctions that have crippled the Kremlin’s ability to finance its war machine.
“Heavy losses to its ground forces and the large-scale expenditures of precision-guided munitions during the conflict have degraded Moscow’s ground and air-based conventional capabilities and increased its reliance on nuclear weapons,” the intelligence community wrote.
Putin, whose country boasts the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world, has previously rattled the nuclear saber on the heels of Ukrainian advances on the battlefield.
The West, meanwhile, has described Putin’s threats of using nuclear weapons as “irresponsible” and an attempt to reassert Russia’s dominance in the region.
Last month, Putin upped the ante by announcing he would suspend participation in the New START treaty, a crucial nuclear arms reduction…
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