Losing in Ukraine, is Putin finally down to his nukes?

Just over three years ago, we assessed that it was no longer a question of whether Russia loses in Ukraine, but only when. At that time, Ukrainian deep-strike drones were just beginning to threaten the Russian interior, and Ukraine’s army was backing a cross-border raid into the Belgorod Oblast.

As it still is today, the Russian Army was then stagnant across the front lines in the Donbas and in southern Ukraine.

Moscow’s response at that time? Russian President Vladimir Putin began raising the specter of potentially using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. He authorized the transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus. He also signaled that he might expand the war to NATO when he withdrew Russia from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe.

Fast forward to today. Putin is once again rattling the nuclear saber, as his military loses, on average, 30,000 troops a month in Ukraine. Kyiv’s deep-strikes against Russia’s oil and energy sector are pummeling the Russian economy.

In May, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that it had delivered “nuclear munitions to field storage points in the operational area of a missile unit in the Republic of Belarus as part of military exercises.” Moscow’s message was primarily aimed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals, but again, it was also aimed at NATO. 

For years now, Moscow has conducted a hybrid campaign against Europe by threatening nuclear sites in the West. Last month, Daniel Salisbury of The International Institute for Strategic Studies observed that “Russia is interested in manipulating nuclear risks to turn up the pressure on Western capitals.”

Russia achieved this by increasing drone activity “around nuclear weapons and nuclear energy” throughout Europe. The Institute examined 144 such incidents “beginning in late 2024.” The Institute concluded that Russia is behind the activity and that, to date, Moscow is essentially acting throughout Europe with “substantial impunity.”

The Kremlin’s targets are concerning. It is believed that Russia is using its shadow merchant fleet to surveil sensitive NATO bases in the United Kingdom, including RAF Feltwell, RAF Fairford, and RAF Mildenhall.

Mildenhall hosts U.S. Air Force planes tasked with carrying air-launched nuclear gravity bombs. 

Similar unmanned aerial vehicle sightings were observed at other NATO nuclear bases, including Kleine-Brogel Air Base in Belgium and Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands. Plus, five Russian-launched aerial drones were detected late last year near the launch site of France’s sea-launched nuclear missile arsenal. 

Russia’s nuclear psyop has also targeted European nuclear power plants. In November 2025, three drones were detected flying over the Doel Nuclear Power Plant in Belgium. 

Moscow’s overarching purpose is to get the West to stand down in Ukraine by creating fear around Russia causing a radiological event somewhere in Europe. In effect, Putin is weaponizing nuclear fear through hybrid warfare.

Putin’s approach is not new. We warned in late August 2022 that Putin was in effect turning the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine into a ‘Nuclear Force Z.’ In the early years of the war, Russian military vehicles often were marked with the Z insignia. Russia captured the facility in southern Ukraine after heavy fighting during the opening months of the war. Putin’s decision to forcibly seize the nuclear plant threatened to create a humanitarian and ecological disaster.

Soon afterward, Russia hypocritically accused Kyiv of shelling the power plant and “endangering the European continent.” But it was not Ukraine threatening Europe; it was Putin messaging that he was willing, at least in theory, to create a nuclear disaster on the continent. 

Ukraine did not fall for it then, and Europe must not fall for it now. Putin is losing the war and now essentially down to his nukes in Ukraine. However, as we noted in 2023, Putin knows that nuclear weapons are not a viable or winning option. He keeps raising the specter of nuclear war only because he knows, militarily speaking, that he is out of conventional military options.

That is why we should expect even more nuclear bluffing from Putin in the days and months ahead — and we should call the bluff. For other than calling President Trump and asking for peace, the nuclear card is the only one he has left to play.

Domestically, nuclear bluffing plays well for Putin. Ultra-nationalists in Moscow are clamoring for Putin to nuke Ukraine. They fully understand that Russia is well on its way to a conventional defeat in Ukraine, and they are lobbying to win at any cost.

That said, however, Putin will not use nukes in Ukraine. He knows that NATO would respond in force, as French President Emmanuel Macron reminded him in March 2024, when he said, “We [too] are a nuclear power.”

If he is desperate enough, the Russian president might yet be willing to create a nuclear incident in Europe as one last-ditch effort to stop NATO aiding Ukraine. He would do so only with plausible deniability built into any such covert action. The idea would be to scare Europe into submission but without starting a full-scale conflict with European nations or NATO.

But we doubt that even that will happen. Putin’s play when it comes to nukes is a pure bluff. He always turns to his nuclear teddy bear when cornered. It may bring him comfort, but it will not achieve victory. 

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. They are the cofounders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.