Russian foreign minister says his country will do everything possible to avoid nuclear war after Ukraine fires Atacms into Russia for first time

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday approved an updated nuclear doctrine, Reuters reports the document posted on the government’s website showed.

In a key section of the document, Russia has expanded the list of criteria that require a nuclear response to include “aggression by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear country”. Such actions, the doctrine says, will be considered a joint attack.

In addition, a nuclear response from Russia is possible in the event of a critical threat to its sovereignty, even with conventional weapons, in the event of an attack on Belarus as a member of the Union State, [or] in the event of a massive launch of military aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, other aircraft and their crossing the Russian border.

Each time these discussions about an individual weapon type are considered, freighted with great significance, the reality has been they’ve only made an incremental difference in the battlefield. From Ukraine’s perspective, it is better to have them than not, but ultimately, no single weapon type is decisive in a complex war like this.

Each of these weapons comes along months, maybe years, after Ukrainians asked for them. It’s quite an agonising process. They are clearly military useful, they have a psychological and deterrent effect but in terms of an actual destructive effect, not so much.