Could Russia use nuclear weapons in Ukraine?
Perhaps. Potentially.
But I think that is the wrong question.
The more interesting question is what Russia’s entire nuclear arsenal is actually worth after decades in which none of it has been used operationally.
Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have not been used on a battlefield. They became weapons of deterrence rather than weapons of war. Their value lies precisely in the fact that everyone assumes they work, while nobody wants to discover what happens if they do not.
That creates an uncomfortable problem for Russia.
The Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme was immense. But the Soviet Union disappeared more than thirty years ago, and much of the infrastructure supporting that arsenal is considerably older.
There have certainly been maintenance programmes. Russia has spent enormous sums attempting to keep its strategic forces operational. But maintenance is not the same thing as renewal, and refurbishment is not the same thing as technological continuity.
Nuclear weapons age.
Some Russian warheads are thermonuclear weapons, and their operation depends on materials that are difficult and expensive to produce and replace. Tritium, for example, is radioactive and decays over time. Components degrade. Electronics age. Propellants deteriorate. Delivery systems require constant maintenance.
Keeping a large nuclear arsenal credible is therefore an extraordinarily expensive undertaking.
Russia claims to maintain thousands of nuclear warheads.
That number sounds impressive.
But a stockpile is not the same thing as a usable arsenal.
The relevant question is how many weapons could actually be delivered, detonated and perform as intended.
And here I become sceptical.
Russia has demonstrated repeatedly that money allocated to maintaining military capability does not necessarily produce the military capability that was supposed to be purchased. Corruption, incompetence, bureaucratic waste and simple mismanagement have hollowed out parts of the Russian military far more conventional than its nuclear forces.
Why should nuclear weapons be magically immune to the same institutional pathology?
Perhaps they are.
Perhaps Russia has maintained its nuclear forces with exceptional discipline while everything around them decayed.
I find that difficult to believe.
And the same question applies to the delivery systems.
Russia’s bombers have not exactly demonstrated effortless conventional dominance over Ukraine. Operating sophisticated aircraft close to a capable enemy is difficult. Long-range missiles are another matter, but they too depend on complex systems that must remain functional after decades of maintenance and periodic modernisation.
Then there is the uncomfortable problem of the first nuclear use.
Russia could detonate one.
But the moment it did, the ambiguity would disappear.
The world would know.
The weapon either works or it does not.
And if it does not, an enormous bluff collapses in public.
There is another consideration that is rarely discussed.
Ukraine possesses a substantial technological and engineering base. It is already demonstrating its ability to develop increasingly sophisticated weapons systems under wartime conditions. The idea that nuclear capability is somehow a permanent Russian monopoly simply because Russia inherited the Soviet arsenal deserves more scrutiny than it normally receives.
If Russia crossed the nuclear threshold, it would fundamentally change the strategic calculation for everyone around it.
And then Moscow would have to ask itself what happens if others decide that the nuclear taboo no longer applies.
This is why I remain deeply sceptical whenever somebody confidently announces that Russia will use nuclear weapons.
Maybe it can.
Maybe some of its arsenal is perfectly maintained.
Maybe its delivery systems are entirely credible.
But none of that should simply be assumed because a spreadsheet says Russia possesses thousands of warheads.
Nuclear deterrence depends on credibility.
Credibility depends on capability.
And capability has to survive decades of time, maintenance, money and institutional competence.
Russia’s nuclear arsenal may still be formidable.
It may also be considerably smaller, older and less reliable than the numbers suggest.
Until somebody actually tests the proposition under battlefield conditions, nobody knows.
And I certainly do not buy the comfortable assumption that the answer is automatically: there will be nukes.
I suspect the reality is considerably less certain.
https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/27/russia-considering-using-nuclear-weapons-ukraine-29474729/