Russia announced on Tuesday that it still maintains an emergency hotline with the United States and NATO to manage crises, as nuclear risks rise amid the most serious confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.
The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what Russian officials describe as its most dangerous phase, with Russian forces advancing and the U.S. considering allowing Kyiv to strike deep into Russia using Western missiles.
President Vladimir Putin warned on September 12 that Western support for such strikes would mean “the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries in the war in Ukraine.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the state news agency RIA that Moscow sees NATO increasingly incorporating nuclear weapons into its strategy.
Grushko added that Russia is updating its nuclear doctrine to signal to its adversaries “so that our opponents have no illusions about our readiness to ensure the security of the Russian Federation with all available means.”
Putin is reportedly adjusting Russia’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons in response to conventional attacks.
The U.S. views China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its greatest state-level threat.
President Joe Biden argues that this century will be defined by a contest between democracies and autocracies.
A hotline between Moscow and Washington was established in 1963, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, to prevent miscommunications that could lead to conflict.
This secure system has been used in several major crises, including the Six-Day War in 1967, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In addition to the leaders’ hotline, nuclear hotlines between the Pentagon and the Russian defense ministry were created during the Cold War to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a new “deconfliction” line was established between Russian and U.S. militaries to prevent escalation into direct conflict.