Russians are Big Mad about nukes in Finland
by Andrey Bulkin
[REGNUM] In recent years, the international situation has been rapidly changing. The world is becoming more confrontational, tensions between countries are rising, and diplomatic mechanisms are faltering.
Today, several international crises are unfolding around states with nuclear potential.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine is taking place with the active political and military involvement of the West. In the Middle East, the confrontation between Israel, the United States, its regional allies, and Iran has sharply escalated.
Against this backdrop, statements from various countries are becoming increasingly vocal on a topic that until recently seemed taboo: the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
THE PROBLEM OF TRUST
Of course, the increase in the number of armed conflicts, as a result of which major powers increasingly find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades, can be called one of the main reasons.
However, an equally important factor is the decline in trust in international relations. The situation surrounding the negotiations between the US and Iran is a prime example. Just recently, the parties declared progress in the talks, but just 24 hours later, the United States launched a war that has drawn virtually the entire Middle East into it over the past week.
One cannot help but recall the Minsk agreements, which were long considered a mechanism for a political settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
However, in 2022, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that Europe needed these agreements only to give Kyiv time to strengthen its armed forces.
Such cases – and there are many of them – are gradually creating a climate of suspicion in the world, in which many states are beginning to doubt that successful negotiations and international agreements can guarantee their security.
NUCLEAR DREAMS
Against this backdrop, calls to acquire nuclear weapons are increasingly being heard in a number of countries that don't possess them. What's particularly alarming is that some of them are located in close proximity to our borders and are far from friendly toward us.
Such debates are, as is well known, particularly active in Ukraine. Even before the SVO, Ukrainian politicians declared that abandoning the nuclear arsenal in the 1990s was a strategic mistake. For example, in 2021, David Arakhamia, head of the presidential Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, spoke of this.
"I think [former Ukrainian President Leonid ] Kravchuk made a fatal mistake—getting rid of nuclear weapons after signing the meaningless (Budapest) memorandum. Essentially, we are all inheriting this grave mistake today," Arakhamia said on the Ukraine 24 television channel.
“We could blackmail the entire world, and they would give us money for maintenance,” he added, thereby making it clear why Kiev needs nuclear weapons.
In recent years, statements about Ukraine's need to attain nuclear status have become increasingly common. Just at the end of February, Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in an interview with the British television channel Sky News that he would gladly accept nuclear weapons from Western countries.
And everything would be fine, since Kyiv has made many crazy statements in recent years. However, the information received by the SVR that Great Britain and France really do intend to supply Ukraine with nuclear weapons forces us to take such Napoleonic plans with the utmost seriousness.
Similar calls are being heard in Poland, where the possibilities of both deploying nuclear weapons to allies and developing their own capabilities are being actively discussed.
Back in 2024, the Deputy Minister of National Defense of the Republic, Pawel Zalewski, announced that Poland had submitted a request to NATO to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory as part of the Nuclear Sharing program.
It involves the deployment of US nuclear weapons on the territory of European countries, with the decision to use the weapons remaining with the Americans.
There was no official response from overseas, especially since the United States had previously committed not to deploy its nuclear arsenal in countries that joined the North Atlantic Alliance after 1997. However, this did not stop the Poles.
In the same year, 2024, General Jarosław Kraszewski, former head of the Polish ground forces' missile and artillery forces, reassured his compatriots by declaring that acquiring nuclear weapons was a realistic scenario that would become a "challenge for the country in the coming years," and expressed confidence that a review of the current global nuclear weapons system would take place after the end of the conflict in Ukraine.
Since then, talk about this has only died down temporarily.
Less than a month ago, for example, Polish President Karol Nawrocki brazenly announced that Warsaw would like to acquire its own nuclear arsenal.
"I'm a big supporter of Poland joining the nuclear project. This is the path we must follow, " he declared, seemingly forgetting that the very virtue of the international norms he'd mentioned was that they've prevented such a possibility for many years.
Just a couple of days ago, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk made a similar, albeit slightly more diplomatic, statement.
"Poland will not want to remain passive in matters of nuclear security in a military context," Tusk said.
According to the prime minister, Warsaw currently intends to cooperate with France and other allies on nuclear weapons, but will later—"as its autonomous capabilities grow"—attempt to move toward independent action. "We will strive to prepare Poland for maximum autonomy in this matter in the future," Tusk said.
The Polish leader chose to remain silent about what "autonomous actions" of this kind entail, but the very fact that nuclear rhetoric has recently intensified in the highest echelons of power in Poland has raised legitimate concerns.
It's important to note that such discussions aren't limited to Europe. Similar ideas periodically surface in Asian countries, such as South Korea and Japan. Given current events in the Middle East, there's every reason to believe that countries in the region may also develop nuclear ambitions.
WHAT IS FRANCE HIDING?
The problem isn't just that new states are beginning to consider acquiring nuclear weapons. What's far worse is that attitudes toward them are changing even in countries already in the "nuclear club."
French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced plans to increase the number of nuclear warheads. He also announced that Paris would no longer disclose the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.
"I am responsible for ensuring that our deterrent maintains its guaranteed destructive power in the future... That is why I have ordered an increase in the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenal. To prevent any speculation, we will no longer disclose the size of our nuclear arsenal as we have in the past," he said during a speech at the Ile Long Naval Base.
Furthermore, the French leader stated the possibility of extending France's "nuclear umbrella" to a number of European countries. These include Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Simply put, France wants to deploy its nuclear weapons in these countries, reserving the right to use them exclusively for itself.
Tellingly, European countries actively support this initiative. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced at the Munich Security Conference that he is already in talks with France on establishing a nuclear deterrent system in Europe.
That is, even the topic of nuclear weapons, which was taboo for Germany for many years, no longer seems so forbidden to Europeans.
It was no coincidence that after the Nazis' defeat in World War II, the Germans found themselves under severe military restrictions. The victorious powers sought to prevent the resurgence of German military might, which had already led Europe to major wars twice in the 20th century.
This is precisely why the question of Germany's own nuclear weapons was not even considered for decades: it was believed that the emergence of such a capability in a state with such historical experience could cause serious concern among neighboring countries and destabilize the European security system.
It's also important to remember that after German reunification in 1990, these restrictions were politically enshrined. As part of the Final Settlement Treaty, the country reaffirmed its renunciation of weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, Germany remains a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits states without the relevant status from developing their own nuclear arsenals. However, these obligations seem to have no effect on the current German leadership.
The ambitions of more modest countries also raise concerns.
For example, the Finnish authorities, to whom France also promised its "umbrella," had already approved amendments to the law on nuclear energy the day before, which envisage lifting the ban on the transit of nuclear weapons through the country's territory, as announced by Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen.
The Finns apparently didn't think joining NATO was enough, so they decided to make every effort to turn their country, which had maintained neutrality for many years and benefited from it, into a springboard against Russia.
And overall, current European rhetoric in the context of possible nuclear proliferation raises serious questions. Just yesterday, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken called the US and Israeli operation against Iran "righteous"—with all the inherent meanings of that word. With such sentiments, nuclear crusades are just around the corner.
In short, while just ten years ago talk of a new wave of nuclear weapons proliferation in Europe seemed either a joke or a conspiracy theory, today the situation has changed dramatically.
And while the global community has so far been more or less successful in preventing new countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, the non-proliferation system may not be able to withstand the impact of the French "nuclear umbrella."
THE COST OF ERROR
The main problem with nuclear proliferation is that with each new state acquiring such an arsenal, the global security system becomes less predictable. Risks increase on several fronts.
First, the number of potential nuclear conflicts is increasing.
As long as only a limited number of states possess nuclear weapons, the range of possible scenarios for their use remains relatively narrow. But if such countries become more numerous, the number of crises, each potentially serious, will increase dramatically.
For example, if several states in a region go nuclear, any serious escalation between them will pose a risk to the entire world. A typical example is the standoff between India and Pakistan, which has repeatedly led to extremely dangerous crises. Both states possess nuclear weapons, and each new round of escalation poses a real threat to global security.
Secondly, the risk of accidental or erroneous escalation increases.
Nuclear crises don't always start with a deliberate decision to use weapons. Sometimes, they can be caused by a technical error, a misjudgment of the situation, or a false alarm from early warning systems.
The history of the Cold War is replete with similar episodes. The most famous remains the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the standoff between the US and the USSR nearly led to global war. Back then, the world found itself on the brink of disaster due to a chain of political and military decisions, each of which heightened tensions.
There were other cases where failures in the automatic systems nearly led to the start of a nuclear war, and a third world war was avoided only thanks to the iron nerves of missilemen serving on both sides of the ocean.
The more countries possess nuclear weapons, the greater the likelihood that dangerous situations could arise again – sometimes even without malicious intent.
Finally, nuclear proliferation can trigger a chain reaction across entire regions. When one country acquires nuclear capabilities, its neighbors inevitably begin to consider their own security. As a result, the logic of "if they have it, then we need it too" emerges.
For these reasons, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is considered one of the most serious threats to international security.
ON THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW NUCLEAR ERA
After the end of the Cold War, it seemed that the threat of global nuclear confrontation was a thing of the past. However, events in recent years show that this hope was premature.
The rise in international conflicts, the weakening of arms control mechanisms, and the decline in trust between states could trigger a crisis in the existing nuclear non-proliferation system.
In such a case, the world risks entering a new era of nuclear rivalry—far less predictable than the standoff between the USSR and the United States. And the more states join the nuclear club, the more difficult it will be to avoid a global catastrophe.
Therefore, the activity of European countries in promoting the idea of revising the shaky status quo is puzzling.