Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has deployed nuclear intimidation to deter foreign intervention. From implicit orders to put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert to ominous threats that anyone in Russia’s way would face “consequences such as you have never seen in your entire history,” Putin has recklessly raised the nuclear stakes. [1] Russia’s aggressive behavior not only sets back decades of work on nuclear disarmament, but also poses new challenges for recent milestones such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). First established in January 2021, the TPNW became the first international legal instrument that subjected nuclear weapons to a comprehensive ban. In addition to prohibiting nations from “producing, testing, acquiring, possessing or stockpiling nuclear weapons,” it “bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons… and the threat to use such weapons.” [2]
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