Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to put Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert, as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced that a delegation from Kyiv would meet Russian officials without preconditions on his country’s border with Belarus.
On the fourth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv remained in Ukrainian control, while officials claimed they had repelled an attack on Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, where street fighting was taking place.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians, mainly women and children, were fleeing from the Russian assault into neighbouring countries.
Putin’s order came at a meeting between the president, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the chief of the general staff of the armed forces of Russia, Valery Gerasimov.
“Senior officials of the leading Nato countries also allow aggressive statements against our country, therefore I order the minister of defence and the chief of the general staff [of the Russian armed forces] to transfer the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty,” Putin said in televised comments.
“Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading Nato members made aggressive statements regarding our country.
It is not immediately clear what the “special mode of combat duty” entails. Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based analyst and head of the Russian Nuclear Forces project, said it was hard to tell what the order meant but that it may be a “preliminary command”. It made a retaliatory strike possible, he said. “But does not mean preparation for a first strike.”
It does not appear to be the highest level of readiness, including bombers being loaded with weapons and taking off. “It is an action that makes the command and control able to react if necessary,” said Podvig. “But it’s a pretty high level.” ...
Other perspectives are numerous.
NY Times: "U.S. deflects Putin’s nuclear alert as another effort at escalation."
This announcement comes amidst a tremendous amount of news much of which I'm only catching up on: