On Tuesday, Russia confirmed it maintains an emergency hotline with both the United States and NATO to reduce tensions as nuclear threats increase during the most serious conflict between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. The Ukraine war, now 2-1/2 years old, is entering what Russian officials consider its most perilous stage as Russian troops push forward and the U.S. contemplates permitting Kyiv to launch Western missiles deep into Russia.
Russia President Vladimir Putin stated on September 12 that if Western approval is given for such action, it would entail “the direct participation of NATO countries, the United States, and European countries in the conflict in Ukraine”.
According to the state RIA news agency, Alexander Grushko, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Europe and NATO relations, stated that Moscow believes NATO is placing greater emphasis on nuclear weapons in its strategy.
Grushko stated that Russia was revising its nuclear doctrine to show its opponents that it is fully prepared to safeguard the security of the Russian Federation by any means necessary. Putin is adjusting Russia’s nuclear policy to allow for a slightly reduced threshold for deploying nuclear weapons in retaliation to a conventional weapons attack.
The US views China as its main rival and Russia as its primary threat among nation-states, with President Joe Biden asserting that the key defining competition of this century will be between democracies and autocracies.
In 1963, a hotline was set up between Moscow and Washington to prevent misunderstandings like those that fueled the Cuban Missile Crisis by enabling direct talks between U.S. and Russian leaders.
The secure computer communication system known as the U.S.-Russian hotline has been utilized in significant crises like the Six Day War of 1967, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the 9/11 attacks of 2001, and following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Along with the leaders’ hotline, there exist nuclear hotlines between the Pentagon and the Russian defense ministry, established during the Cold War to lessen the chances of nuclear conflict.
Following Putin’s deployment of numerous Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, a new “deconfliction” line was set up between the Russian and U.S. militaries to avoid the conflict escalating into a U.S.-Russian war.
Andrei Belousov, the Minister of Defense, reached out to Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary of the United States, in July regarding concerns of a potential Ukrainian scheme to strike Russia. The New York Times stated that Austin received a phone call from Belousov on July 12 regarding a secret Ukrainian mission against Russia thought to be approved by the United States, according to Moscow. In 2013, a Russia-NATO hotline was also set up to decrease miscommunications during crisis scenarios.