Putting nuclear weapons to use risks escalation, impossible to control and potentially catastrophic | Diana Magnay
The US president is hardly unique in saying the risk of a nuclear “Armageddon” is higher now than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis – or as it is known in Russia, the Caribbean crisis.
Anyone who has thought for more than five seconds about Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats given the geopolitical state of play would conclude the same and indeed, it is a staple comment across Russian state TV.
And though the Russian president’s assertion that “this is not a bluff” is the kind of statement you make when you’re bluffing, Russia’s nuclear arsenal should be taken seriously. That is why it’s there.
Clearly, US officials are, which is why they have reportedly been making firm comments behind closed doors to their Russian counterparts that a nuclear strike is the worst of all possible ideas and that retaliation would be decisive.
At their core, the power of nuclear weapons lies in their ability to persuade the opposing party to do or not to do something, that is the very nature of deterrence.
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Russia ‘keeping nuclear debate going’
Actually putting them to use in any capacity, tactical or strategic, has undeterminable benefits and escalation risks which are in all likelihood impossible to control and potentially catastrophic for all concerned.
At a very basic level, the wind might blow in Russia’s direction, Vladimir Putin would lose his friends in China and India, and a Western conventional retaliatory strike might knock out Russian infrastructure President Putin needs to keep his country going and his people on side.
The question is whether Vladimir Putin, who celebrates his 70th birthday this Friday, is thinking rationally about any of that.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for a first-strike nuclear attack only if the very existence of the state is deemed at risk. It is a high bar. Ukraine has already struck targets in illegally annexed Crimea and in the Russian border town of Belgorod.
The Kremlin seems to have preferred not to make too big a deal out of it. Although this latest round of annexations means that Russia can claim these four territories of Eastern Ukraine as its own and therefore that any Ukrainian attack is a strike on the Russian state, it is a stretch to claim that as existential and a road that Russia has so far chosen not to travel.
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What is a tactical nuclear weapon?
Nor does Russia appear to have moved to take any of its nuclear warheads out of central storage and unite the payload with the means of delivery.
So far, its nuclear threats are just that – threats. There is still a long way to go in the way of signalling and warnings before we reach actual Armageddon.
And although Russia may be losing ground on the battlefield, it does still have other options beyond continuing to hammer it out in Donbas and Kherson.
Why hasn’t it taken out targets in Kyiv, for example, since the early days of the war? What about other forms of hybrid warfare (continuing to) target energy infrastructure in Ukraine and beyond? Vladimir Putin is a master of those dark arts. A nuclear strike, one would hope, would be his weapon of last resort.
Read more:
Biden warns world is facing biggest threat of nuclear ‘Armageddon’ since Cuban missile crisis
Russian RS-24 Yars ballistic missiles roll in Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, June 2020. Pic: AP
The talk now in Russia is moving increasingly towards the Kremlin’s willingness to talk. The proposition seems to be – let’s discuss ending this now with Russia claiming a huge chunk of Eastern Ukraine as its own and there is the threat of tactical nuclear weapons if you don’t or if NATO troops get involved.
Ukraine’s president is understandably not convinced. Volodymyr Zelenskky wants his country back, whole. He is not the one thinking about potential off-ramps for Vladimir Putin, he’s thinking about winning.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskky
Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia
Which is why it is so important that the US president is.
As Joe Biden put it in comments overheard by reporters, he’s trying to figure out where Mr Putin finds a way out where he “does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia”.
Read more: What nuclear weapons does Russia have?
The trouble is it is incredibly hard to determine what that is and by raising the rhetorical stakes, Vladimir Putin appears to be backing himself increasingly into a corner. The prospects are deeply worrying.
In an interview with Sky News, Russian lawmaker and TV host Evgeny Popov insisted Russia would never make the first strike.
“Using a nuclear weapon in the 21st century is an insane decision. We are not insane and we hope you are not either.”
Let’s hope Vladimir Putin feels the same.
The biggest city in the Sahel has been ransacked and left in ruins.
War erupted in Sudan’s capital Khartoum in April 2023 and sent millions searching for safety.
The city was quickly captured by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) after a power struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for total control.
At least 61,000 people were killed from the fighting and siege conditions in Khartoum state alone.
Thousands more were maimed and many remain missing.
The RSF fled Khartoum’s neighbourhoods in caravans carrying the city’s looted treasures as the army closed in and recaptured it after two years of occupation.
The empty streets they left behind are lined with charred, bullet-ridden buildings and robbed store fronts.
The once shiny skyscrapers built along the confluence of the River Nile are now husks of blackened steel.
The neighbourhoods are skeletal. Generational homes are deserted and hollow.
Damage from fighting around Khartoum
Trenches snake the streets where copper electric cables were ripped out of the ground and pulled out of lampposts now overridden with weeds.
The majority of the 13 million people displaced by this war fled Khartoum. Many left in a rush, assuming it would only take a few weeks for peace to be restored.
My parents were among those millions and in the midst of the abandoned, looted homes is the house where I grew up.
Yousra Elbagir’s family home was left in ruins by RSF troops
Yousra said it was likely a bomb had previously fallen nearby and shaken the house at its base
A shell of a home
I have to strain my eyes to see the turn to my house. All the usual markers are gone. There are no gatherings of young people drinking coffee with tea ladies in the leafy shade – just gaping billboard frames that once held up advertisements behind cars of courting couples parked by the Nile.
Our garden is both overgrown and dried to death.
The mango, lemon and jasmine trees carefully planted by my mother and brother have withered.
Structural damage to the outside of the home
The Bougainvillea has reached over the pathway and blocked off the main entrance. We go through the small black side door.
Our family car is no longer in the garage, forcing us to walk around it.
It was stolen shortly after my parents evacuated.
The two chairs my mum and dad would sit at the centre of the front lawn are still there, but surrounded by thorny weeds and twisted, bleached vines.
How the home looked before Sudan’s war
And how it looks now
The neighbour’s once lush garden is barren too.
Their tall palm trees at the front of the house have been beheaded – rounding off into a greyish stump instead of lush fronds.
Read more:
How recaptured palace is a significant sign of return to order
Sudan’s paramilitary chief announces rival government
Everyone in Khartoum is coming back to a game of Russian roulette. Searching out their houses to confirm suspicions of whether it was blasted, burned or punctured with bullets.
Many homes were looted and bruised by nearby combat but some are still standing. Others have been completely destroyed.
How the home looked before the war
And how it looks now
The outside of our house looks smooth from the street but has a crack in the base of the front wall visible from up close.
It is likely a bomb fell nearby and shook the house at its base – a reminder of the airstrikes and shelling that my parents and their neighbours fled.
Inside, the damage is choking.
Most of the furniture has been taken except a few lone couches.
The carpets and curtains have been stripped. The electrical panels and wiring pulled out. The appliances, dishes, glasses and spices snatched from the kitchens.
Yousra shows her mother pictures found in the home
The walls are bare apart from the few items they decided to spare. Ceilings have been punctured and cushions torn open in their hunt for hidden gold.
The walls are marked with the names of RSF troops that came in and out of this house like it was their own.
The home that has been the centre of our life in Sudan is a shell.
Sudan’s war has left the country fractured
Glimmers of hope
The picture of sheer wreckage settles and signs of familiarity come into focus.
A family photo album that is 20 years old.
The rocking chair my mother cradled me and my sister in. My university certificate.
Yousra finds her university certificate in the wreckage
Celebratory snaps of my siblings’ weddings. Books my brother has had since the early nineties.
The painting above my bed that I have pined over during the two years – custom-made and gifted to me for my 24th birthday and signed by my family on the back.
There are signs of dirt and damage on all these items our looters discarded but it is enough.
Yousra’s parents pictured at home before they fled Khartoum
Evidence of material destruction but a reminder of what we can hope will endure.
The spirit of the people that gathered to laugh, cry and break bread in these rooms.
A portrait of Yousra’s grandmother damaged by RSF troops
The hospitality and warmth of a Sudanese home with an open door.
The community and sense of togetherness that can never truly be robbed.
What remains in our hearts and our city is a sign of what will get us through.
World
Unpredictable and disruptive or canny and persistent – what exactly is Donald Trump’s foreign policy?
So, after 100 days of Donald Trump the big question for me remains – does the US president have a coherent foreign policy or is he just winging it?
Let’s take his attitude to the war in Ukraine – here “inconsistent” is perhaps the best description.
Back in February, he and vice president JD Vance humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by shouting at him in the Oval Office.
A few days later, I spoke to Mr Zelenskyy in person when he confided to me that maybe he would have to step down if NATO could guarantee Ukraine membership – a man who perhaps sensed he could never win against a hostile Mr Trump.
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Sky News meets Zelenskyy: The key moments
Yet, fast-forward to last weekend in Rome, and an iconic picture of the two men in close conversation at the Pope’s funeral.
This time round, it is Russian President Vladimir Putin on the receiving end of the presidential anger, blaming him for the fact that “too many people are dying!”
Trump and Zelenskyy talk in the Vatican. Pic: AP
To Trump’s supporters, this is the smart negotiator, constantly repositioning himself as new information comes in, prior to pulling off a spectacular deal.
To his many detractors, it indicates a dangerous incoherence that is replicated in other key areas, including tariffs as well as his relationship with his allies in Europe and his foes in Beijing.
Trump 100: Read more
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Flexible or fallible; in control or all at sea? In the fast and furious world of Donald Trump, it’s almost impossible to call.
The only constants are his unwavering self-belief, or as the man himself says: “I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.”
We shall see.
A paramedic in Gaza who was detained for more than five weeks following an Israeli attack that killed 15 aid workers has been released, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said.
Asaad al Nsasrah was one of 17 aid workers who were attacked in Tel al Sultan in southern Gaza by Israeli forces on 23 March.
Asaad was one of two first responders who survived – the other 15 were killed.
He was initially thought to be missing, as his body was not among the dead. It was not until 13 April, three weeks after the attack, that Israel confirmed Asaad was alive and in Israeli detention.
The PRCS announced Asaad’s release on X and shared a video of him reuniting with colleagues.
Sky News has seen images showing Asaad, among other released Palestinians, in a grey tracksuit at al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, where he is undergoing medical examination, according to the PRCS.
Sky News investigated how the attack on the aid workers unfolded – unearthing new evidence earlier this month contradicting Israel’s official account of what happened.
The Israeli military later released the findings of its own investigation into the incident, saying it had dismissed a deputy commander for providing an “inaccurate report”.
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How two hours of terror unfolded
The PRCS claimed the Israeli military’s investigation was “full of lies”.
Asaad’s voice can be heard in a video, initially published by the New York Times, that shows the moments leading up to the attack on the aid workers.
The video was discovered on Rifaat Radwaan’s phone, which was found on his body by rescue workers five days after the attack.
Among those killed were one UN worker, eight paramedics from the PRCS and six first responders from Civil Defence – the official fire and rescue service of Gaza’s Hamas-led government.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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