Russia may use tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine – German intelligence

Russia may use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine in a bid to impose a “dictated peace”, with no evidence so far to back the suspicion, the head of the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany, Bruno Kahl, said on Friday at a hearing in the Bundestag. 

 

Kal suggested that Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine “did not come as a surprise” to his service.

 

He noted that Putin “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons and stressed that “it may come to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.”

 

“Then they will seek to impose a dictated peace on Ukraine. On the Russian side, there are no signs of readiness to compromise in possible negotiations with Ukraine,” Kal said.

 

The intelligence officer stated that defeat in the war against Ukraine from the Russian perspective could “pose an existential threat to Putin’s rule”, but his service has no indication that Russia plans to use strategic or tactical nuclear weapons.