Russians unwilling to access foreign
media via virtual private networks
continue to be poorly informed. On
March 14th Marina Ovsyannikova, a
television-newsproducer,madea brave
attempttoimprovethings.Volodymyr Zelensky continued to reach
out to governments around the world. In
a more pragmatic act of connection, the
Ukrainian and Moldovan electric grids
were synchronised to the eu’s, helping
ensure electricity supplies.The isolation of Russian citizens Ukraine and the worldIncrease in Russian VPN use, mid-February
to mid-March. Source: Reuters2,088%
18 Briefing The war in Ukraine The Economist March 19th 2022
beginning of the Russian invasion he
warned foreign powers who might try to
hinder the advance of “consequences that
you have never encountered in your histo
ry”. On February 27th, after the imposition
of unprecedented banking sanctions by
Western countries (rung 20: “‘Peaceful’
WorldWide Embargo or Blockade”), Mr
Putin gave an order that the country’s “de
terrence forces” be transferred to a “special
mode of combat duty”. Fasten all the triggers
The simplest nuclear scenario sees Mr Pu
tin, if faced with outright defeat in Uk
raine, trying to turn the tide by letting off a
nuke (rung 18: “Spectacular Show or De
monstration of Force”). Christopher Chiv
vis, who served as America’s top intelli
gence official for Europe between 2018 and
2021, says that in various war games held
after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in
the Western experts and military officers
playing Russia sometimes chose to con
duct nuclear tests or a highaltitude deto
nation of the sort which interferes with
communications over a wide area—“Think
of an explosion that makes the lights go
out over Oslo.”
A wrinkle on this would be for Russia to
use a small nuclear weapon in Ukraine and
either justify it as a preemptive attack on
nonexistent Ukrainian weapons of mass
destruction or claim Ukraine had done it.
That would be followed by demands for an
unconditional surrender backed by threats
of more of the same.A small nuclear explosion might seem
like a contradiction in terms. But Russia
and nato both field “nonstrategic” or
“tactical” nuclear weapons which do much
less damage than the citydestroying ones
mounted on intercontinental ballistic
missiles. Those strategic nuclear weapons
typically have yields measured in the hun
dreds of kilotons: their blasts are equiva
lent to letting off hundreds of thousands of
tonnes of high explosive. Tactical nuclear
weapons can weigh in at a few kilotons, or
less. The yield of a b61, an American weap
on with a variable yield, can be “dialled
down” as low as 0.3 kilotons if it is to be
used as a tactical weapon. The explosion of
a few thousand tonnes of badly stored am
monium nitrate in Beirut in August
showed how terrible such blasts can be.
But they are far less devastating than those
of the weapons used in allout wars.
Russia is thought to have thousands of
nonstrategic nuclear weapons; it views
them as a way of compensating for nato’s
strength in advanced conventional materi
als such as precisionguided weapons.
There are 100200 b61s at nato airbases in
Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands
and Turkey, despite America's armed forc
es generally thinking such things of little
value on the battlefield. Their presence is
held to give those European allies a direct
stake in America's nuclear umbrella, thus
making it more credible.
The availability of these weapons is part
of what makes the second, indirect, route
to the use of nuclear arms frightening. Thisinvolves Mr Putin broadening the conflict
into one in which nato forces are directly
involved in a way that they have so far re
sisted—not least because of the nuclear
risk inherent in such a confrontation.
One fear is that Russia might directly at
tack arms depots or shipments on the soil
of a nato member state, such as Romania
or Poland. Russian spies have covertly at
tacked such depots in Bulgaria and the
Czech Republic in recent years. On March
12th Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy for
eign minister, said arms convoys were “le
gitimate targets”. If the country thus at
tacked called on its alliesto treat the ag
gression as a trigger for Article Five, the
alliance’s mutualdefence clause, nato
might decide to respond with reprisals
against Russian forces in Ukraine, if not
against forces in Russia itself. The worst fear
Another possibility is that Western coun
tries may act on internal pressure to try to
stop the bloodshed, especially if the war in
Ukraine escalates—for example with the
use of chemical weapons. Spurious Rus
sian allegations that Ukraine has such
weapons might set the stage for a falseflag
operation that Russia uses to justify yet
more harsh retaliation. Such tactics would
spread terror among Ukrainian civilians
and signal to natothat Russia intends to
stop at nothing. At the same time it would
put “immense pressure on natoto compel
Russia by use of force to stop such attacks,”
says Oliver Meier of the Institute for Peace