https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/in-russland-wird-die-forderung-nach-einem-atomschlag-auf-nato-laender-lauter/

"Change in nuclear doctrine In Russia, calls for a nuclear strike on NATO countries are growing louder An influential Russian expert has called for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against NATO countries in light of Western countries' likely permission for Kiev to attack targets in Russia with Western long-range weapons.

from Anti-Spiegel September 12, 2024 10:28 pm I have often reported on Professor Karaganov (see here or here), who has been calling for Russia to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries since 2023. Karaganov is not just some nutcase, but a very influential expert in Russia.

His argument is that Russia's nuclear deterrent is ineffective because Russia has allowed the West to cross one Russian “red line” after another in Ukraine with impunity. The West has lost its fear of nuclear war and is therefore continuing to escalate in Ukraine. According to Karaganov, however, this will inevitably lead to a major nuclear war at some point. He therefore advocates a limited nuclear strike to show the West that Russia means business.

In my opinion, Karaganov is not wrong about this, because Russia's patience actually gives the West a sense of impunity. In Der Spiegel, for example, one of the most radical anti-Russian propagandists in the Spiegel editorial team published an article a few days ago entitled “War in Ukraine - Putin's horror story of the red lines”, in which she de facto demanded that all restrictions on Ukraine be lifted and that it be supplied with all the weapons it needs to wage war on the whole of Russia.

Such articles and demands are a consequence of Russia's patience, which the West interprets as weakness.

However, this is a fallacy. Russia patiently negotiated peace in Ukraine from 2014 to 2022, which the West interpreted as weakness. When the West then wanted to bring Ukraine into NATO, Putin's clear warnings from December 2021 were no longer taken seriously in the West, leading to the escalation in February 2022, when Russia saw no other option but to protect its security by force.

This is also the case with the West's escalation steps in Ukraine. From first aid kits and helmets in March 2022, when the West was still afraid of a Russian reaction, we have now moved on to deliveries of heavy tanks, cruise missiles and fighter jets to Kiev because the West has lost its fear of Russia.

But here, too, the day must inevitably come when Russia sees no other option but to respond with attacks on NATO countries if the West's escalatory steps reach a level that Russia sees as a threat to its existence.

Karaganov warns against this, because then we would already be at the point of a “major nuclear war”. He therefore advocates a pre-emptive strike against a NATO country in order to “wake up” the West and bring it to its senses before it is too late. You don't have to agree with this argument, but you can't dismiss it out of hand either.

Incidentally, Russia is currently revising its nuclear doctrine and it is expected that Russia will significantly lower its inhibition threshold for the use of nuclear weapons in light of current developments. For this reason, the Russian newspaper Kommersant interviewed Karaganov and I have translated the interview to show the German audience his reasoning and the state of discussions in Russia on the subject. ..."

Then the Russian/German translation by Thomas Roeper follows. It´s worth to translate it gto English.