| Russischer Angriff auf Ukraine #8 |  |
Das ISW hat die Rede Putins analysiert und versucht sich an einer Deutung: [https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/special-report-assessing-putin%E2%80%99s-implicit-nuclear-threats-after-annexation]
-Russian President Vladimir Putin did not threaten an immediate nuclear attack to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensives into Russian-occupied Ukraine during his speech announcing Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory.
-Putin’s annexation speech made several general references to nuclear use that are consistent with his past language on the subject, avoiding making the direct threats that would be highly likely to precede nuclear use.
-Putin is attempting to force Kyiv to the negotiating table by annexing Russian-occupied territory and threatening nuclear use.[2] He is following the trajectory that ISW forecasted he might on May 13.
-Putin’s call for negotiations and implicit nuclear threats are aimed at both Ukraine and the West; he likely incorrectly assesses that his nuclear brinksmanship will lead the United States and its allies to pressure Ukraine to negotiate.
-ISW cannot forecast the point at which Putin would decide to use nuclear weapons. Such a decision would be inherently personal, but Putin’s stated red lines for nuclear weapon use have already been crossed in this war several times over without any Russian nuclear escalation.
-Putin would likely need to use multiple tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve his desired operational effect—freezing the front lines and halting Ukrainian counteroffensives. But the operational effect would need to outweigh the potentially very high costs of possible NATO retaliation.
-The more confident Putin is that nuclear use will not achieve decisive effects but will draw direct Western conventional military intervention in the conflict, the less likely he is to conduct a nuclear attack.