Russia’s nuclear-arms threats: all bark, no bite

Russian talk of a ‘Poseidon’ nuclear strike on Belgium ironically exposed how far it was from ever using an atomic weapon.

Former president Dmitry Medvedev threatened to make Belgium “disappear” on 29 October on X, while boasting about Russia’s tests of a nuclear super-torpedo named Poseidon and a nuclear-powered missile called Burevestnik.

Belgium is the home of the EU and Nato HQs, hosts US nuclear warheads, and has immobilised €185bn of Russia’s central bank assets, making it a Kremlin target.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and his underlings have also made dozens of other nuclear threats against the West since their full invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and still more in the 10 years leading up to it.

Russia has rehearsed nuclear escalation in its military exercises, such as Zapad in Belarus in September, and was flying its long-rage nuclear bombers around Nato airspace, as well as testing the Poseidon and Burevestnik.

And Nato’s military command centre in Mons, southern Belgium, has an atomic-proof bunker, just in case.

But for all his sabre-rattling, Putin has never done anything that made Western military chiefs think he was about to start a nuclear war.