West prepares for the worst
Western countries are making contingency plans to deal with the chaos of a nuclear war in Ukraine, officials say, as the threat of a battlefield strike by Russian President Vladimir Putin grows.
The measures could include issuing leaflets on how to survive an attack, or ways to ease panic buying, amid fears that the fallout could reach Europe and beyond.
Putin’s recent threats to use nuclear weapons have set off alarm bells across Nato, with the alliance holding talks behind closed doors on how it would respond to such an attack.
Some observers believe there is a realistic prospect of the Russian leader using a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine, either firing it on land or into the Black Sea.
Asked if there were contingency plans to deal with the fallout of a strike, a Western official said: ‘‘The government is conducting prudent planning for a range of possible scenarios.’’
He added: ‘‘Any use of nuclear weapons would break a taboo that has held since 1945, and would lead to severe consequences for Russia as well as everybody else.’’
Strategists warn of at least two outcomes from a nuclear war with Russia.
The first is that a desperate Putin attacks a big city, causing untold death and destruction. The second is that he attacks somewhere else, such as a less populated region.
‘‘The public tends to look at the use of nuclear weapons as a cinematic, extinction-level
event,’’ said Stephen Herzog, a senior researcher in nuclear arms control at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university. ‘‘What, though, if we’re talking about the use of a small, tactical nuclear weapon over a forest or Snake Island?’’
The question for Herzog and other researchers is: Would the world, especially China and India, still condemn it? Or would the nuclear taboo be broken?
Putin has said Russia will use ‘‘all available means’’ to defend its territory, which the Kremlin has redefined to include the annexed parts of Ukraine.
‘‘Nuclear deterrence is running on fumes,’’ Herzog said.
Without going into detail, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Russia would face ‘‘severe consequences’’ if it used nuclear weapons in Ukraine. However, French President Emmanuel Macron hinted this week that France would not use its independent deterrent against Russia if atomic missile strikes were ordered on Ukraine.
Putin says he expects his mobilisation of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be
completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic callup meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory.
Putin said the mobilisation he ordered last month had registered 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defence Ministry had set as an initial goal. A total of 33,000 had joined military units, and 16,000 were deployed for combat, he said.
The mobilisation was troubled from the start, with confusion about who was eligible. Opposition was so strong that tens of thousands of men left Russia, and others have protested in the streets.
Reports have also surfaced that some recruits were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with little preparation and inadequate equipment. Putin responded to the criticism yesterday, saying all activated recruits should receive adequate training.
The United States Defence Department has received a request from SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk to take over funding for his satellite network that has provided crucial battlefield communications for Ukrainian military forces during the war with Russia.
Musk’s Starlink system of more than 2200 low-orbit satellites has provided broadband internet to more than 150,000 Ukrainian ground stations. He has said that it is costing his SpaceX company US$20 million (NZ$36m) a month to support Ukraine’s communications needs.
The Starlink satellite internet plays a vital role in Ukraine’s defence. It has helped frontline Ukrainian reconnaissance drone operators to target artillery strikes on key Russian assets.
The request from the world’s richest man follows a Twitter war between Musk and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In a Twitter exchange last week, Musk argued that to achieve peace, Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimean Peninsula, which it seized in 2014. He also said Ukraine should adopt a neutral status, dropping a bid to join Nato.