On 23 October, Shoigu separately called his counterparts from France, Türkiye, the UK, and the US, putting forward the allegations that Ukraine is preparing a false-flag attack involving the use of a “dirty bomb,” a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material that is not a nuclear weapon, to accuse Russia of using weapons of mass destruction. “Russian state media amplified this false and ridiculous claim,” ISW wrote.
“Russian Ministry of Defense reports on the calls contain slight differences; they state that Shoigu discussed a claimed “steady tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation” in Ukraine in the call with his French counterpart; discussed the “situation in Ukraine” and made false claims that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb in his calls with the United Kingdom, France, and Türkiye; and simply discussed the situation in Ukraine without reference to a dirty bomb in his conversation with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.”
ISW says that Shoigu’s claims further a longstanding Russian information campaign as “the Kremlin has repeatedly claimed that Western states will help Ukraine conduct a false-flag WMD attack since the earliest stages of its invasion of Ukraine in February.” The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed it had information the US was “preparing provocations to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using chemical, biological, or tactical nuclear weapons” in April. Meanwhile, Russian President Putin claimed in his February 24 pre-invasion speech that Ukraine was preparing for a nuclear attack against Russia.
ISW previously stated on September 30 that “ISW cannot forecast the point at which Putin would decide to use nuclear weapons. Such a decision would be inherently personal, but Putin’s stated red lines for nuclear weapon use have already been crossed in this war several times over without any Russian nuclear escalation.”
Russia does not “need,” under formal Russian nuclear doctrine, a further event to justify nuclear weapons use. Ukraine is not apparently on the verge of tripping some new Russian redline, on the other hand, that might cause Putin to use non-strategic nuclear weapons against it at this time. Shoigu’s comments are thus unlikely to presage a nuclear terror attack against one or more major Ukrainian population centers or critical infrastructure in hopes of shocking Ukraine into surrender or the West into cutting off aid to Ukraine.
