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Could Russia’s Kaliningrad threats trigger a nuclear crisis with NATO · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Russia's president has just made it clear that his country
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: is prepared to use its whole range of weapons if
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: NATO tries to cut off the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin's comments follow an explicit warning from Moscow to
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: NATO in the form of a letter that said that
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Russia could use nuclear weapons if alliance members tried to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: isolate the territory. Here's Vladimir Putin issuing a stark warning
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: about What would happen if Kaliningrad or other Russian territory
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: came under direct attack?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: If it comes to a direct attack on the Russian Federation,
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  Speaker 2: in this case we are referring to Kaliningrad, but perhaps
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: other territories as well, then of course the question of
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the Russian Federation deploying all types of weapons at our
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: country's disposal will inevitably and immediately be on the agenda.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Well, the message sent to NATO says that Russia could
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: use its entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons, if Kaliningrad were isolated.
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  Speaker 1: So why does this small piece of Russian territory, why
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: does it matter so much? Kaliningrad sits on the Baltic Sea,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: separated from the rest of Russia and sandwiched between NATO
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: members Poland and Lithuania. It's also heavily militarized, home to
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Russia's Baltic fleet, air defenses and nuclear-capable weapons. Ikskander missiles.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But look just to Kaliningrad's southeast. Between Kaliningrad and Russia's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: close ally Belarus lies a narrow stretch of Polish-Lithuanian border
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: known as the Suwalki Gap. Now, the gap is strategically
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: important because it provides the land connection between NATO's Baltic
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: members and the rest of the NATO alliance. Reuters reports
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that dozens of NATO took part in an unannounced operation
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: around Kaliningrad back in August. With Russia now saying that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: NATO must not try to isolate the territory, the European
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Union says that Moscow's nuclear warning is an attempt to
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  Speaker 1: intimidate the West and that it won't play along.
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  Speaker 2: The EU will not fall for the Russian trap and
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: we will not amplify Moscow's tactics of intimidation and scaremongering.
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  Speaker 3: And joining me now is Heather Williams.
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  Speaker 1: She's director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her research examines Russia's
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: nuclear threats and how to prevent them from becoming a
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  Speaker 1: nuclear war.
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  Speaker 3: Heather, it's good to have you on the program.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: The head of NATO, Mark Rutte, said yesterday, I don't
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: take this that seriously.
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  Speaker 3: Do you share that confidence?
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  Speaker 1: Is anything about this warning different from the threats that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: we've heard from the Kremlin before?
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  Speaker 4: Well, thank you for having me. And I somewhat share
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: that assessment. This is familiar territory. Russia has consistently used
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: nuclear threats since it began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: Just days after the invasion began, in fact, President Putin
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: said that he would be changing the country's nuclear alert status.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Since then, there have been dozens, if not hundreds, of
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: explicit or implicit threats on the part of the Kremlin.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: So this is familiar, what they're doing. At the same time,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: it's nuclear weapons. It's nuclear threats. And so we should
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: always be pretty concerned and a little bit on edge
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: about this. I do also think that the timing of
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: these threats in particular is a bit unique. And the
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: nature of the threats and talking about maritime blockades, that's
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: something new that we're seeing.
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  Speaker 3: Why do you say the timing is unique?
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this threat in particular, I think it's unique in
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  Speaker 4: three ways. One of them is that it's over Kaliningrad. Typically,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Russia's threats have been about Ukraine trying to deter NATO
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  Speaker 4: intervention or support for Ukraine. Kaliningrad is a somewhat new
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  Speaker 4: addition to its playbook in terms of making these types
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: of statements. So that's one thing that's a little bit different.
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  Speaker 4: The other aspect that I found somewhat surprising, quite frankly,
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  Speaker 4: is how explicitly it was directed at NATO member states.
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  Speaker 4: The way in which this threat was communicated, it was
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: directly to embassies. It was direct diplomatic statements. This was
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: not a late-night tweet. This wasn't something coming from a
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  Speaker 4: press secretary equivalent. This could not have been more clear
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: in being directed at NATO. The final aspect that I
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: thought was a bit different, as I said, is the
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: maritime aspect to this. And this could have something to
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: do with increased NATO exercises, increased NATO naval exercises. But
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: I also think it has a lot to do with
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: Russia's shadow fleet, which has been incredibly active. But we
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: know that in recent years, European countries have had more
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: interventions with the shadow fleet recently. According to one report,
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: there were, I believe, six to nine interceptions just in
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: the first six months of 2026. So clearly the maritime
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: angle here is different and is something that's important to Moscow.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Moscow is claiming that NATO is preparing a blockade. Is
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: there any evidence to support that claim?
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  Speaker 4: I have seen no evidence of that whatsoever. It could
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  Speaker 4: just suggest that Russia genuinely is concerned about a blockade
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  Speaker 4: of Kaliningrad at some state. Kaliningrad is in a bit
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  Speaker 4: of a unique and vulnerable position geographically, as it's a
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  Speaker 4: Russian enclave. It's not attached to the Russian homeland, so
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  Speaker 4: it doesn't really have the strategic depth benefits that the
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: rest of Russia does. But in terms of any evidence
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  Speaker 4: of a blockade or NATO making preparations for that, I
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: haven't seen any publicly available evidence.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I want to pull up something that you wrote.
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  Speaker 3: It's been about two years ago.
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  Speaker 1: You authored an essay entitled Why Russia Keeps Rattling the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Nuclear Sabre. And in it, you write that Russia keeps
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: making nuclear threats as a means of deterrence and nuclear signaling.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: But another reason Russia continues to rely on nuclear saber
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: rattling is because it is getting away with it. So
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: has Western caution, has it taught Vladimir Putin anything?
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  Speaker 3: That nuclear blackmailing works?
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  Speaker 4: Two years ago, when I first wrote that, I might
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: have said that, yes, that is the Kremlin's takeaway. There
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: is evidence to suggest that in the early days of
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: the Ukraine war, some of Russia's threats might have slowed
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: Western intervention and Western support for Ukraine. But since then,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: the value that Russia is getting from these nuclear threats
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  Speaker 4: it doesn't just seem to be diminishing. It actually seems
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  Speaker 4: to be working against Russia. If what Russia was hoping
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: for was that these nuclear threats would divide and weaken NATO,
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  Speaker 4: it's had the opposite effect. Arguably, Finland and Sweden joined
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: NATO specifically because it's a nuclear alliance in the threat
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: of Russia's nuclear saber-rattling. There is one thing from that
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: statement that I do stand by, which is that the
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: international community has been very slow, in my opinion, to
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: condemn Russia's saber rattling. Russia's continued reliance on nuclear weapons,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: on nuclear threats. This is not being called out in
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: the way that it should be. If we want to
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: make sure that nuclear weapons are never used, that's just
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: not a matter of nuclear deterrence. There is a diplomatic
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: role there as well. And I really would like to
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  Speaker 4: see the wider international community beyond NATO members to include China, India,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: global south states calling out Russia's aggression, relying on nuclear threats.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: You mentioned Russia's shadow fleet.
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  Speaker 3: Let me ask you about a scenario.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Suppose NATO stops a Russian ship and Moscow calls it
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: the start of a blockade. How easily could that become
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a conflict that neither side intended?
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  Speaker 4: I'm really glad you're asking this because this is a
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: scenario I am increasingly worried about. The specific reason I
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: am increasingly worried about this is because we know that
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Russia has started arming its Gazprom LNG tankers. And possibly
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: that's because of concerns about a blockade. But to be clear,
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: our understanding is that they're arming them with machine guns,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: not with cruise missiles. But if we do have armed
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: Russian tankers out there, and potentially the shadow fleet also
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: is going to be armed, and we do see some
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: incident at sea, that really does worry me because, as
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: you say, Russia really likes to shape the narrative. They
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: like to take any sort of incident and try to
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: use it to its purposes to try to divide NATO,
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  Speaker 4: to try to build international support for whatever it is
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  Speaker 4: that it's trying to do. But you're also hitting on
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: something that this isn't a new problem that we're facing.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: States were constantly worried about incidents at sea, and that's
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: why they came up with these incident at sea agreements.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: We don't have anything like that for the current environment
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: tailored to the current crisis scenario that you just outlined.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you, if an incident
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  Speaker 1: like that were to happen tonight, who could actually pick
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: up the phone and call someone and stop it from escalating?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, are the military contacts between Russia and NATO,
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  Speaker 1: are they reliable enough right now?
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  Speaker 4: I can't speak to that explicitly because I'm not an official,
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: but there is a decent track record of hotline and
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: crisis communication channels. These were set up right after the
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Cuban Missile Crisis to try to avoid something like that
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: from happening again. So we really do need to keep
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: those alive. I will say one particular concern that I
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: have is the lack of more dialogue with Russia. You
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: don't wanna just talk to someone in a crisis. You
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: wanna talk to them during the good times as well.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: You wanna understand their perspective. If Russia genuinely is worried
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: about a blockade, that strikes me as a great topic
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  Speaker 4: for a US-Russia or US-Russia-China dialogue to understand why is
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: a naval blockade so concerning to you? Is there something
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: we're doing that is making you worried about this that
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: maybe we don't know that we're doing? Or is this
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: a red herring for something else? But Russia has just
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: consistently refused U.S. overtures under Republican and Democrat administrations to
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  Speaker 4: re-engage in those sort of strategic stability dialogues or in
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: follow-on arms control agreements.
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  Speaker 1: I want to bring you back to Kaliningrad for just
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  Speaker 1: a moment. Mark Rutte's argument is that Russia cannot defeat NATO.
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  Speaker 1: But could that become part of the danger here? If
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Moscow feared losing Kaliningrad in a conventional war, would nuclear
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  Speaker 1: weapons then become more tempting?
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  Speaker 4: Russia wants us to be asking that question and to
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  Speaker 4: be unsure of what they do. That is part of
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  Speaker 4: their deterrence messaging, part of their deterrence strategy. I can
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: tell you what Russia's nuclear doctrine says and how they
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: might respond, but that doesn't mean that's what they'll actually
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  Speaker 4: do in the moment. According to Russia's nuclear doctrine, threats
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: to the sovereign territory or also to its strategic forces
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  Speaker 4: are conditions under which it would consider nuclear weapons use. Now,
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: it's interesting that in the fall of 2022, there were
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: all these concerns about possible Russian use of nuclear weapons
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  Speaker 4: if it lost on the battlefield in Ukraine. That isn't
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: even the Russian homeland. Some Russians might think that it's
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: part of the Russian homeland, but it isn't in the
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  Speaker 4: way that Kaliningrad is. Kaliningrad is very explicitly covered by
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  Speaker 4: Russia's nuclear doctrine, its interpretation of sovereign territory. With that,
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  Speaker 4: my reading is that Russia's threshold for nuclear use is
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  Speaker 4: if it perceives a threat to the survival of Putin's
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  Speaker 4: regime and to its sovereign territory. So if there was
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: a belief that the blockade could lead to some sort
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: of an invasion in Kaliningrad, again, it doesn't have the
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: strategic depth that the Russian homeland does, then that would
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  Speaker 4: be a concerning scenario for me.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Heather Williams, good to have you on the program. Great
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: getting your insights on this. We appreciate your time tonight.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Thank you.