UK 'Wargaming A Response

Experts believe the Russian president is planning how he could escalate the conflict in Ukraine after humbling defeats

- Thomas Kingsley

The UK is "likely already wargaming" its response to a potential Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine, experts have claimed. Vladimir Putin made his clearest threat of nuclear warfare during a national address in September, warning the West that Russia had "various weapons of destruction" and was "not bluffing" about their potential use.

Russia has intensified attacks in Ukraine since the threat, most recently firing dozens of missiles at apartment blocks in multiple cities in apparent retaliation for an explosion on the Crimea-Russia bridge. In a bid to bolster Moscow's declining war effort following successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv, Mr Putin also appointed "brutal" new senior commander Sergei Surovikin, believed to be responsible for potential war crimes in Syria.

As the West weighs the possibility of nuclear weapons being used by Russia, experts say the UK would already be modelling its responses to different scenarios of escalation in the war. "The UK is alerted," King's College London military historian Dr Simon Anglim told The Independent. "I strongly suspect the UK is already thinking about potential responses, it's been thinking about this since the war began."

Dr Anglim added that defence officials have been tasked with assessing the seriousness of Russian threats and deciding what should be considered "sabre rattling" and what could be a genuine warning of attacks to come. "There are two schools of thought with this," Dr Anglim said. "One of them is that Putin is just a bumbling gangster, a blustering conman, Russia's Trump. But the other view is that he's very serious indeed about what he says. That's a cause for concern for the government in confronting him, but I would say we already have contingency plans in place."