There are no small nuclear wars, given the catastrophic global effects of even a “limited” initial exchange and the likelihood of runaway retaliation, so every nuclear power on Earth—there are currently nine—has the power to end, well, everything.
And that means every nuclear-armed state can draw its red lines around the things it will never give up—or claims it will never give up—and then dare rival states to cross those lines. Maybe it’s a bluff. Maybe it’s a serious threat to end the world. Every conflict between atomic powers, whether direct or by proxy, requires both sides to carefully read their opponent.
It gets easier with time. The more Putin threatens to nuke the planet, the easier it is for other world leaders to tell the bluffs from the real red lines.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin feels like he’s winning in Ukraine, he eases up on his nuclear threats. When Putin feels like he’s losing in Ukraine—he escalates his apocalyptic rhetoric.
And that’s why Putin’s latest open musings about a potentially world-ending atomic exchange are so significant. Compared to recent nuclear mutterings, Putin has been striking a more conciliatory tone. Whether or not it’s warranted, the Russian leader feels more secure about his position in Ukraine.
For one main reason: President Donald Trump.
“There has been no need to use those weapons,” Putin said in a state-sponsored film broadcast on May 4 to commemorate his 25 years as president. He was responding to a question about Russia’s thousands of nuclear weapons—and whether Russia would use them in Ukraine. “I hope they will not be required,” Putin mused.
Incredibly, this casual nod toward the unthinkable—a nuclear war—represents a de-escalation for Putin. A year ago, he warned Western governments supplying long-range weapons to Ukraine to “realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory.”
“All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization,” Putin said. “Don’t they get that?”
Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace in Washington, D.C., said Putin knows exactly what he’s doing. “He’s manipulating risk and reminding his adversary that crossing key thresholds…could lead to a sequence of events manifesting in nuclear use.”
“We call it nuclear blackmail in the West because we don’t like what he’s doing,” Panda added, “but it’s an essential component of the coercion inherent in nuclear deterrence.”
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, agrees.
“The main objective from day one has been to deter the West from getting directly involved in the war” in Ukraine, he explained “But his approach and the message has changed over time depending on how the West behaved.”
In the early months of Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine, when Russian forces were advancing rapidly toward Kyiv, the atomic talk coming out of Moscow “vague and general,” Kristensen said. “It was a generic warning about Russian capabilities, often not even specified.”
But then, in the spring of 2022, the Ukrainians pushed the Russians back to eastern Ukraine’s frontier oblasts. That fall, the Ukrainians pushed even harder—swiftly liberating the northeast. Emboldened, Ukraine’s allies poured lethal aid into the country.
“As the West’s support increased, Putin played up the nuclear rhetoric,” Kristensen said. That rhetoric softened again when Ukraine’s next counteroffensive, in the summer of 2023, got mired in minefields and faltered.
Russian regiments advanced in 2024 but lost momentum early this year as they ran into a veritable wall of Ukrainian drones outside key fortress cities and towns such as Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. Slowing Russian advances, and skyrocketing Russian casualties, should’ve prompted another nuclear tirade from the Russian president.
But they didn’t. “Most recently, Putin has once again downplayed the role of nuclear weapons in the war by explicitly saying it is not necessary,” Kristensen pointed out.
This is largely because of Donald Trump’s warm feelings toward the Kremlin.
An unabashed fan of autocrats all over the world, Trump has always favored Russia over Ukraine—even going so far as to blame Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. Trump and his envoys have consistently framed any talk of ceasefires or wider peace deals in Russian terms, even offering to officially recognize Russian control over the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine that Russian forces occupy.
“If the war goes bad for Russia and it is about to lose control of those provinces, then I think the nuclear issue becomes more important again,” Kristensen said. But Putin loses credibility every time he threatens, and then un-threatens, atomic hellfire.
“The West called his bluff on using nuclear threats to deter the West from supporting Ukraine,” Kristensen said. They should continue calling his bluff if Ukraine ever musters the strength to liberate more of its land Russia occupies.
David Axe is a reporter and filmmaker in South Carolina and the author of the graphic novel WAR IS BORING. He has a Substack, Trench Art.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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