Vladimir Putin’s forces have rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power, according to leaked Russian military files that include training scenarios for an invasion by China.
The classified papers, seen by the Financial Times, describe a threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, according to experts who reviewed and verified the documents.
The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons.
Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.
“This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”
Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by land or sea-launched missiles or from aircraft, are designed for limited battlefield use in Europe and Asia, as opposed to the larger “strategic” weapons intended to target the US. Modern tactical warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. Although the files date back 10 years and more, experts claim they remain relevant to current Russian military doctrine. The documents were shown to the FT by western sources.
The defensive plans expose deeply held suspicions of China among Moscow’s security elite even as Putin began forging an alliance with Beijing, which as early as 2001 included a nuclear no-first-strike agreement.
In the years since, Russia and China have deepened their partnership, particularly since Xi Jinping took power in Beijing in 2012. The war in Ukraine has cemented Russia’s status as a junior partner in their relationship, with China throwing Moscow a vital economic lifeline to help stave off western sanctions.
Yet even as the countries became closer, the training materials show Russia’s eastern military district was rehearsing multiple scenarios depicting a Chinese invasion.
The exercises offer a rare insight into how Russia views its nuclear arsenal as a cornerstone of its defence policy — and how it trains forces to be able to carry out a nuclear first strike in some battlefield conditions.
One exercise outlining a hypothetical attack by China notes that Russia, dubbed the “Northern Federation” for the purpose of the war game, could respond with a tactical nuclear strike in order to stop “the South” from advancing with a second wave of invading forces.
“The order has been given by the commander-in-chief . . . to use nuclear weapons . . . in the event the enemy deploys second-echelon units and the South threatens to attack further in the direction of the main strike,” the document said.
China’s foreign ministry denied there were any grounds for suspicion of Moscow. “The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between China and Russia has legally established the concept of eternal friendship and non-enmity between the two countries,” a spokesperson said.
“The ‘threat theory’ has no market in China and Russia.”
The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.
A separate training presentation for naval officers, unrelated to the China war games, outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons.
The slides summarise the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces “would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression”, a “critical situation for the state security of Russia”.
Other potential conditions include the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines, 30 per cent of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or a simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centres.
Russia’s military is also expected to be able to use tactical nuclear weapons for a broad array of goals, including “containing states from using aggression […] or escalating military conflicts”, “stopping aggression”, preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russia’s navy “more effective”.
Putin said last June that he felt “negatively” about using tactical nuclear strikes, but then boasted that Russia had a larger non-strategic arsenal than Nato countries. “Screw them, you know, as people say,” Putin said. The US has estimated Russia has at least 2,000 such weapons.
Putin said last year that Russian nuclear doctrine allowed two possible thresholds for using nuclear weapons: retaliation against a first nuclear strike by an enemy, and if “the very existence of Russia as a state comes under threat even if conventional weapons are used”.
But Putin himself added that neither criteria was likely to be met, and dismissed public calls from hardliners to lower the threshold.
The materials are aimed at training Russian units for situations in which the country might want the ability to use nuclear weapons, said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, rather than setting out a rulebook for their use.
“At this level, the requirement is for units to maintain — over the course of a conflict — the credible option for policymakers to employ nuclear weapons,” Watling added. “This would be a political decision.”
While Moscow has drawn close to Beijing since the war games and moved forces from the east to Ukraine, it has continued to build up its eastern defences. “Russia is continuing to reinforce and exercise its nuclear-capable missiles in the Far East near its border with China,” said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “A lot of these systems only have the range to strike China.”
Russia was still behaving in accordance with the “theory of use” of nuclear weapons set out in the documents, Alberque said. “We have not seen a fundamental rethink,” he said, adding that Russia is probably concerned that China may seek to take advantage of Moscow being distracted “to push the Russians out of Central Asia”.
The documents reflect patterns seen in exercises the Russian military held regularly before and since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Alberque, who previously worked for Nato and the US defence department on arms control, pointed to examples of Russian exercises held in June and November last year using nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in two regions bordering China.
Hmmm, a little convenient
This is what Putin wants you to believe the criteria are.
And suddenly, Xi realizes that his partnership with Russia is a way of feeding China’s own Nemesis.
Russia will never have true allies. Their appetite to betrayal is second to their thirst for foreign lands.
Another chunk of nuclear fear mongering.
A bit too perfect timing for this to be leaked by “western sources” right after Macron’s comments, no?
Tactical nuclear weapon are a taboo but not world enders contrary to strategical nukes, they are as powerful as big non nuclear bombs.
All I keep seeming from Russia regarding war is Russia is a very scared country and live on fear, they are not brave or confident the slightest.
Deliberately leaked IMO.
Please refer yourself to the scene in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Gary Oldman version). Where Smiley says it’s “just enough glitter amongst the chicken feed”.
$35/mo!? R u srs!? It takes me 3 days to make that amount!
“Leaks” of “documents”. I can only imagine western cowards masturbating while reading this terror porn.
The part about China is no surprise. The way in which Russia seized that historical part of China in 1860 is still a fresh wound for them. Some discreet voices are slowly starting to be heard from China that the east of Russia is historical Chinese territory.
China wants Outer Manchuria back, but is waiting for the right moment. For now, Russia and China are friends because of a common enemy, but that will last until Russia weakens. If a civil war breaks out in Russia, China could intervene. Russia knows that.
So, probably the biggest threat to Russia is an invasion from China. China needs water, gas, oil and land. Russia has all of that.
Russia is as afraid of escalating the conflict as the west, he knows Russia doesn’t have a change when it comes to conventional warfare against NATO. They are scraping barrel just to hold off the Ukrainians. All that bullshit about the Russians are holding their best units and materiel back in the beginning of the war, was just that, ie bullshit
FYI, one can get around the Financial Times paywall if google is the referrer. Google the headline, then click on the [ft.com](https://ft.com) link from the google search results.
The trouble with Russia using tactical nukes is that it would leave a smoking crater the size of Moscow.
Yeah right. As if some of the most secret type of document had leaked right in time for some fear mongering.
Do you seriously believe that any documents related to the operational use of nuclear weapons could be leaked even in corrupt Russia?
Western journalists really need to do their job properly before releasing into from the FSB.
This is just scare tactics. This is leaked on purpose to scare off anybody who want’s to put foot on Russian ground.
Well, they said the Russian disinformation and fear mongering would be at its peak over the next few months. Take it with a pinch of salt.
The fact is: this “leak” is irrelevant. Putin decides if and when he uses nuclear weapons. No criterion for this is fixed, no matter what is practised in wargames beforehand. If Putin thinks the day has come, then the day has come – regardless of whether it is preceded by the absence of a Ukrainian surrender, a Chinese invasion or the sinking of the Northern Fleet by the USA. It can happen in any of these cases, but it doesn’t have to. It’s not a science, it depends on one man. And that’s really worrying when you think about the possible consequences. Because this system is bound to fail at some point in the future.
Nobody gives a shit about landing troops in Russia. Ukraine has already been striking targets in Russia such as oil depos and Russia hasn’t used nukes.
I doubt US or EU forces would enter Russia too. Ukraine possible if things drag on. But it would be to restore the 1991 borders. And not to invade Russia.
Any way I get get around article pay wall on mobile phone ?
Baba Yaga aka Fake News aka The Scary Russians, fock em, fock the Kremlin, Putin and his criple bich
Shouldn’t first criteria being that they work?🤨
Here is the criteria: Putin is really angry.
It is a one man dictatorship, stop pretending it has other rules
25 comments
Vladimir Putin’s forces have rehearsed using tactical nuclear weapons at an early stage of conflict with a major world power, according to leaked Russian military files that include training scenarios for an invasion by China.
The classified papers, seen by the Financial Times, describe a threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons that is lower than Russia has ever publicly admitted, according to experts who reviewed and verified the documents.
The cache consists of 29 secret Russian military files drawn up between 2008 and 2014, including scenarios for war-gaming and presentations for naval officers, which discuss operating principles for the use of nuclear weapons.
Criteria for a potential nuclear response range from an enemy incursion on Russian territory to more specific triggers, such as the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines.
“This is the first time that we have seen documents like this reported in the public domain,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “They show that the operational threshold for using nuclear weapons is pretty low if the desired result can’t be achieved through conventional means.”
Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons, which can be delivered by land or sea-launched missiles or from aircraft, are designed for limited battlefield use in Europe and Asia, as opposed to the larger “strategic” weapons intended to target the US. Modern tactical warheads can still release significantly more energy than the weapons dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. Although the files date back 10 years and more, experts claim they remain relevant to current Russian military doctrine. The documents were shown to the FT by western sources.
The defensive plans expose deeply held suspicions of China among Moscow’s security elite even as Putin began forging an alliance with Beijing, which as early as 2001 included a nuclear no-first-strike agreement.
In the years since, Russia and China have deepened their partnership, particularly since Xi Jinping took power in Beijing in 2012. The war in Ukraine has cemented Russia’s status as a junior partner in their relationship, with China throwing Moscow a vital economic lifeline to help stave off western sanctions.
Yet even as the countries became closer, the training materials show Russia’s eastern military district was rehearsing multiple scenarios depicting a Chinese invasion.
The exercises offer a rare insight into how Russia views its nuclear arsenal as a cornerstone of its defence policy — and how it trains forces to be able to carry out a nuclear first strike in some battlefield conditions.
One exercise outlining a hypothetical attack by China notes that Russia, dubbed the “Northern Federation” for the purpose of the war game, could respond with a tactical nuclear strike in order to stop “the South” from advancing with a second wave of invading forces.
“The order has been given by the commander-in-chief . . . to use nuclear weapons . . . in the event the enemy deploys second-echelon units and the South threatens to attack further in the direction of the main strike,” the document said.
China’s foreign ministry denied there were any grounds for suspicion of Moscow. “The Treaty of Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation between China and Russia has legally established the concept of eternal friendship and non-enmity between the two countries,” a spokesperson said.
“The ‘threat theory’ has no market in China and Russia.”
The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.
A separate training presentation for naval officers, unrelated to the China war games, outlines broader criteria for a potential nuclear strike, including an enemy landing on Russian territory, the defeat of units responsible for securing border areas, or an imminent enemy attack using conventional weapons.
The slides summarise the threshold as a combination of factors where losses suffered by Russian forces “would irrevocably lead to their failure to stop major enemy aggression”, a “critical situation for the state security of Russia”.
Other potential conditions include the destruction of 20 per cent of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines, 30 per cent of its nuclear-powered attack submarines, three or more cruisers, three airfields, or a simultaneous hit on main and reserve coastal command centres.
Russia’s military is also expected to be able to use tactical nuclear weapons for a broad array of goals, including “containing states from using aggression […] or escalating military conflicts”, “stopping aggression”, preventing Russian forces from losing battles or territory, and making Russia’s navy “more effective”.
Putin said last June that he felt “negatively” about using tactical nuclear strikes, but then boasted that Russia had a larger non-strategic arsenal than Nato countries. “Screw them, you know, as people say,” Putin said. The US has estimated Russia has at least 2,000 such weapons.
Putin said last year that Russian nuclear doctrine allowed two possible thresholds for using nuclear weapons: retaliation against a first nuclear strike by an enemy, and if “the very existence of Russia as a state comes under threat even if conventional weapons are used”.
But Putin himself added that neither criteria was likely to be met, and dismissed public calls from hardliners to lower the threshold.
The materials are aimed at training Russian units for situations in which the country might want the ability to use nuclear weapons, said Jack Watling, a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, rather than setting out a rulebook for their use.
“At this level, the requirement is for units to maintain — over the course of a conflict — the credible option for policymakers to employ nuclear weapons,” Watling added. “This would be a political decision.”
While Moscow has drawn close to Beijing since the war games and moved forces from the east to Ukraine, it has continued to build up its eastern defences. “Russia is continuing to reinforce and exercise its nuclear-capable missiles in the Far East near its border with China,” said William Alberque, director of strategy, technology and arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “A lot of these systems only have the range to strike China.”
Russia was still behaving in accordance with the “theory of use” of nuclear weapons set out in the documents, Alberque said. “We have not seen a fundamental rethink,” he said, adding that Russia is probably concerned that China may seek to take advantage of Moscow being distracted “to push the Russians out of Central Asia”.
The documents reflect patterns seen in exercises the Russian military held regularly before and since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Alberque, who previously worked for Nato and the US defence department on arms control, pointed to examples of Russian exercises held in June and November last year using nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in two regions bordering China.
Hmmm, a little convenient
This is what Putin wants you to believe the criteria are.
And suddenly, Xi realizes that his partnership with Russia is a way of feeding China’s own Nemesis.
Russia will never have true allies. Their appetite to betrayal is second to their thirst for foreign lands.
Another chunk of nuclear fear mongering.
A bit too perfect timing for this to be leaked by “western sources” right after Macron’s comments, no?
Tactical nuclear weapon are a taboo but not world enders contrary to strategical nukes, they are as powerful as big non nuclear bombs.
All I keep seeming from Russia regarding war is Russia is a very scared country and live on fear, they are not brave or confident the slightest.
Deliberately leaked IMO.
Please refer yourself to the scene in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Gary Oldman version). Where Smiley says it’s “just enough glitter amongst the chicken feed”.
$35/mo!? R u srs!? It takes me 3 days to make that amount!
“Leaks” of “documents”. I can only imagine western cowards masturbating while reading this terror porn.
The part about China is no surprise. The way in which Russia seized that historical part of China in 1860 is still a fresh wound for them. Some discreet voices are slowly starting to be heard from China that the east of Russia is historical Chinese territory.
China wants Outer Manchuria back, but is waiting for the right moment. For now, Russia and China are friends because of a common enemy, but that will last until Russia weakens. If a civil war breaks out in Russia, China could intervene. Russia knows that.
So, probably the biggest threat to Russia is an invasion from China. China needs water, gas, oil and land. Russia has all of that.
Russia is as afraid of escalating the conflict as the west, he knows Russia doesn’t have a change when it comes to conventional warfare against NATO. They are scraping barrel just to hold off the Ukrainians. All that bullshit about the Russians are holding their best units and materiel back in the beginning of the war, was just that, ie bullshit
FYI, one can get around the Financial Times paywall if google is the referrer. Google the headline, then click on the [ft.com](https://ft.com) link from the google search results.
The trouble with Russia using tactical nukes is that it would leave a smoking crater the size of Moscow.
Yeah right. As if some of the most secret type of document had leaked right in time for some fear mongering.
Do you seriously believe that any documents related to the operational use of nuclear weapons could be leaked even in corrupt Russia?
Western journalists really need to do their job properly before releasing into from the FSB.
This is just scare tactics. This is leaked on purpose to scare off anybody who want’s to put foot on Russian ground.
Well, they said the Russian disinformation and fear mongering would be at its peak over the next few months. Take it with a pinch of salt.
The fact is: this “leak” is irrelevant. Putin decides if and when he uses nuclear weapons. No criterion for this is fixed, no matter what is practised in wargames beforehand. If Putin thinks the day has come, then the day has come – regardless of whether it is preceded by the absence of a Ukrainian surrender, a Chinese invasion or the sinking of the Northern Fleet by the USA. It can happen in any of these cases, but it doesn’t have to. It’s not a science, it depends on one man. And that’s really worrying when you think about the possible consequences. Because this system is bound to fail at some point in the future.
Nobody gives a shit about landing troops in Russia. Ukraine has already been striking targets in Russia such as oil depos and Russia hasn’t used nukes.
I doubt US or EU forces would enter Russia too. Ukraine possible if things drag on. But it would be to restore the 1991 borders. And not to invade Russia.
Any way I get get around article pay wall on mobile phone ?
Baba Yaga aka Fake News aka The Scary Russians, fock em, fock the Kremlin, Putin and his criple bich
Shouldn’t first criteria being that they work?🤨
Here is the criteria: Putin is really angry.
It is a one man dictatorship, stop pretending it has other rules
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