On February 21, 2023, three days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech to the Federal Council to reiterate that Russia is facing an “existential threat” and that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.” Moreover, Putin announced that Russia is suspending its membership in the New START Treaty. The nuclear arms reduction treaty was signed by the United States and Russia on April 8, 2010, in Prague, and after ratification, it entered into force on February 5, 2011, and was extended for five years until February 5, 2026.

The Speech

The following are the most important points in President Putin’s speech on the first anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian war: 

1- Blaming the West for the conflict in Ukraine: 

He blamed the West for shifting the conflict from a local to a global one. Putin accused Western powers of “letting the genie out of the bottle” despite Russia’s attempts to solve this problem by peaceful means. 

2- Reiterating Russia’s determination to continue its military operation: 

Putin said that Russia will deal with the tasks it has at hand “step by step.” He also noted that the West is fighting Russia in Ukraine and that the US-led West seeks unlimited power in international affairs while Russia attempted to stop them. He added that the West shuffles the cards and celebrates its choices because “it got used to being allowed everything, got used to spitting on the whole world. 

3- Russia suspending its participation in New START: 

Putin said he was compelled to announce the suspension. He reiterated that Russia is not withdrawing from the treaty but rather suspending its participation. He further warned that if the United States goes ahead with nuclear tests, Russia will do the same. The Russian leader also made sure to explain that his decision was prompted by western support to Ukraine, unlike the West, which does not accept any correlation between issues of offensive arms and the war in Ukraine. He said that before resuming discussions of this issue, the combined offensive capabilities of NATO, including France and the United Kingdom, and not only the United States. He concluded, “it is either the height of hypocrisy and cynicism… They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us and also to get to our nuclear sites.”

4- Sending messages to both Russians and Ukrainians: 

Putin was mindful to reiterate that the economic situation is stable and that the state prioritizes the protection of citizens. He blamed the West for “inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict.” On the social front, he accused the West of attempting to impose its own culture on the Orthodox Church and imposing same-sex marriage. Putin believes that all these cultural issues are the West’s own problem, “but we are obliged to protect our children.” He further said that he was proud that “our multi-ethnic nation, the absolute majority of our citizens, have taken a principled stance on the special military operation.”

Messages to the West

The following are the messages that Putin sent across to the West in his speech: 

1- Russia’s firm stance and insistence on its position on the war in Ukraine and its view can be summarized as per the following:

A- Moscow believes the current crisis with the West was caused by the structure of European security and not by the issue in Ukraine. Moscow’s goal is to replace the post-Cold War order dominated by the United States and run by NATO with another order in which Russia is a main partner and which can be regulated by pacts that clearly define rights and commitments. 

B- Russia was never happy with the post-Cold War American military and political dominance in Europe when the expansion of NATO was launched. Moscow has long been unable to interrupt this process despite its recurrent warning that it poses threats to security in Europe. It also hoped that after reluctantly accepting the accession of Central Europe, Balkan as well as the three Baltic countries to NATO, it will remain capable of maintaining influence sufficient enough to block former Eastern Europe countries such as Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia from following suit. Yet, the situation changed significantly in 2014 when a pro-Western and anti-Russian assumed the government in Kyiv. Since then, and after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, preventing Ukraine from joining NATO became a priority in Putin’s approach to European security issues. 

C- The only language that Western Countries led by the United States Understand is the language of power. That is, Russia believes that it has made diligent efforts to find a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Ukraine, but the developments showed that Washington was not willing to make moves toward this end. 

D- The conflict in Ukraine caused radical changes to Russia’s relations with the world. Its political relations with the West and its allies became evidently “aggressive” at various levels. In the view of the Russian leadership, this conflict is only a proxy war waged by the West against Moscow and it is a deep and long-term one with long-term consequences that mandates mobilization of all resources to counter it.  

E- The strategic goal of Russia’s war in Ukraine is to install itself as a major world power that plays an active role in building a multi-polar world order that prevents the dominance of any single world power or of a group of western powers. 

2- Using New START as leverage. Putin’s decision to halt Russia’s participation in New START, which received extensive attention in the West, sends significant messages, the most important of which are as follows: 

A- Russia reiterates that it still has international strategic leverages that should not be taken for granted. Experts in Russian-American relations often underscore the importance of these relations from Washington’s perspective in light of the following considerations: 

• The fact that Russia is a major nuclear power and is the only state that poses an existential threat to the United States and its allies. Within this context, the West often expresses its concerns over Russia’s continuous nuclear upgrades, which enabled Moscow to produce missiles and warheads to renew its nuclear triad, three-pronged nuclear force structure consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers. It should be noted that there are concerns that Washington has not yet caught up with Moscow’s ongoing upgrading of its nuclear arsenal. 

• Russia’s ability to show off its military might and extraterritorial military deployment as part of its competition with the existing world order. Additionally, Russia has grand ambitions about maximizing its military power. 

• Russia has veto power on the UN Security Council, which it often uses to thwart initiatives backed by the United States against states such as Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea. 

Based on that, and in the view of many western experts, the most cooperative relations between the United States and Russia can help the United States in countering threats to its national security and other threats that Washington cannot effectively counter alone. These include transnational threats such as terrorism, organized crime, regional conflicts, nuclear proliferation, cybercrime, and space threats. 

Within this context, US President Joe Biden, immediately after he assumed office, showed interest in communicating with Moscow and extended New START. In April 2021, he spoke with President Putin again to discuss a number of issues. Later, he proposed a meeting with Putin in Europe to discuss ways of de-escalating tensions and hold a dialogue about strategic stability to continue cooperation on arms control and security. The two leaders held a summit meeting in Geneva on June 16, 2021. Following their historic summit, the two leaders issued a joint statement in which they reiterated what their predecessors Ronald Regean and Mikhail Gorbachev emphasized back in 1958. 

Biden and Putin “reaffirmed the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” In the joint statement, the United States and Russia said they “will embark together on an integrated bilateral Strategic Stability Dialogue in the near future that will be deliberate and robust. Through this Dialogue, we seek to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.” Later, three high-level meetings were held between the US deputy secretary of state and the Russian deputy foreign minister- two meetings were held in June 2021, followed by a third in September of the same year. But these meetings yielded no substantial results. The only result of the US-Russia summit was the return of their ambassadors, who were recalled in March 2021, to their posts.

Because of US concerns, direct communication took place between the US secretary of defense and the Russian minister of defense in July 2022 after Russia claimed that Ukraine was preparing to use a "dirty bomb.” A second call between the two sides was held in late October 2022 between General Mark Milley, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Valery Gerasimov, Russian Chief of the General Staff. In the call, according to two U.S. officials, General Gerasimov outlined a use of nuclear weapons consistent with Washington’s understanding of Russia’s nuclear doctrine.

Late last year, Washington and Moscow announced that they will resume strategic dialogue about arms control in meetings in Cairo, but the meetings were canceled because of escalation and tensions over the conflict in Ukraine. 

B- Despite the above, Putin’s elaboration on suspending Russia’s membership in New START was cautious and carefully worded. In addition to his reiteration that he was compelled to make the decision, he explained that Russia is only suspending its participation in the treaty and is not withdrawing from it. Immediately after Putin delivered his speech, the Russian foreign ministry issued a statement emphasizing that despite the suspension of its participation in New START, Russia will take a prudent approach and will continue to strictly comply with the quantitative restrictions stipulated in the treaty for strategic offensive armaments within the life cycle of the treaty in February 2025. The ministry also summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy to Moscow to protest what it sees as “expanding” American involvement in the war with Ukraine. In the statement, the ministry said that if the US wanted to de-escalate the situation, it should “take steps envisaging the withdrawal of US-NATO military and equipment, as well as the cessation of hostile anti-Russian activities.” 

Cautious Deterrence

Evidently, Russia’s suspension of its participation in New START was meant to counter Western policies by deterring NATO from direct involvement in supporting Ukraine, as well as to influence US behavior. It should be noted that President Biden described Russia’s decision to temporarily suspend its participation in the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the two countries as “a big mistake (that is) not very responsible.” Yet, Biden said that he does not read into that that Putin is thinking of using nuclear weapons or anything like that.” Earlier in October 2022, Biden stated that Putin is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly and that the Russian leader will not use a tactical nuclear weapon. 

Biden’s statement was backed by senior western officials, including British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace. 

To conclude, according to US assessments, Moscow has not made any unusual steps and there are no signs that Russia is deploying any short-range nuclear weapons. Even when criticizing Biden for being very cautious in sending military aid to Ukraine, US officials reiterate the president’s priority is to ensure that the current war in Ukraine will not escalate into a nuclear conflict between Russia and the West.