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Russian President Vladimir Putin has made repeated nuclear threats since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, sparking backlash and concern around the world. Putin could even decide to attack Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon if he gets desperate enough, Western governments and top Russian analysts have warned.
But a former KGB agent is pouring cold water on concerns that Putin – a Cold War-era KGB officer who is now hugely powerful and reportedly a multi-billionaire – would use such a devastating weapon.
“During the Cold War, it was pretty tense and we came pretty close to nuclear war a few times. But the Soviet leaders were not suicidal. They didn’t want to die. This was guaranteed mutual destruction. Vladimir Putin is not a suicide bomber. Vladimir Putin wants to live,” Jack Barsky, who served as an undercover agent in the U.S. for the KGB during the last decade of the Cold War, told Insider.
Barsky, who was born Albrecht Dietrich in East Germany before being recruited by the KGB, said Putin may be “maniac” but he is not suicidal.
“He’s still working on his legacy and he pretty much knows that if a nuclear weapon goes off – he’s toast. That’s not the kind of legacy he’s interested in,” Barsky said of Putin, adding: “Putin can pretend to be very intellectual because he wears a cross and now goes to church. But he’s a logical thinker. And he’s very unlikely to start something that almost guarantees his death.”
Barsky served in the KGB at the same time as Putin and has interacted with one of the Russian leader’s former KGB bosses, Oleg Kalubin. Barsky eventually became a US citizen and consulted for the FBI and NSA – offering information on the KGB – after being exposed as a former sleeper agent in the 1990s.
Barsky also questioned how the use of a tactical nuclear weapon – whose explosive power can range from conventional explosions to explosions larger than the 1945 US attack on Hiroshima, Japan – would fundamentally change the war and benefit Putin.
“How do you get more territory by blowing up a nuclear weapon and killing a hundred thousand people?” Barsky said, going on to say that such an attack could backfire by also exposing Russian troops to potentially lethal radiation.
Shortly after the war began, Putin claimed he had put Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert. He has repeatedly made references to Russia’s nuclear arsenal, which is the largest in the world, in public remarks about the war against Ukraine. “This is not a bluff,” Putin said in September, after making a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons while pledging to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity.”
Top Russian military officials recently held talks about the conditions under which Russia could use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, according to recent reports citing new US intelligence. However, Putin reportedly did not participate in the discussions, and a report by CNN suggests that US officials are torn about the information and unsure what to do with it.
Some officials have been quite alarmed by the information and worry about desperate actions Russia might take as it grows increasingly frustrated in Ukraine. But other officials believe the information may have been taken out of context and is not an indication that Russia is taking steps to use such a weapon, CNN reported.
Putin in late October also somewhat scaled back the nuclear rhetoric, saying that using such a weapon in Ukraine would serve no purpose. “We don’t see any need for that,” Putin told a conference of foreign policy experts, according to the Associated Press, adding, “There is no political or military sense in this.”
Top Russian and military experts have also assessed that there is no immediate risk of Putin using a tactical nuclear weapon, but stressed that the Kremlin’s threats should be taken seriously and that the risk will increase as Russian forces continue to suffer losses and the Ukraine forces recaptured territories.
