Russia’s military will be “annihilated” by Western forces if Russian President Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, the European Union’s top diplomat has warned.
“Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer — not a nuclear answer, but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated,” European Union High Rep. Josep Borrell said Thursday. “This is a serious moment in the history, and we have to show our unity, our strength, and our determination. Complete determination.”
That statement marks the most specific warning to Putin issued in public by a senior Western official. President Joe Biden’s administration has offered more ambiguous vows that Russia would face “catastrophic consequences” for a nuclear strike, but Borrell’s statement suggests that trans-Atlantic policy regarding that scenario is trending toward the militant posture that Poland and other Central European governments deem necessary to deter Putin.
“Putin is saying he is not bluffing,” Borrell told the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges. “Well, he cannot afford bluffing. And it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine, the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing either.”
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The statement was an unusual one for Borrell, who leads the diplomatic corps of a European bloc that historically has functioned as an economic and political bloc, not a military power. Yet, it does punctuate his contention that the war in Ukraine “is changing the European Union” into a “more assertive” geopolitical power.
It also came on the heels of more conciliatory remarks from French President Emmanuel Macron, who emphasized Wednesday that “a ballistic nuclear attack in Ukraine” would not provoke a nuclear response from Paris, one of NATO’s three nuclear-armed states.
“Our doctrine rests on the fundamental interests of the nation,” Macron told French media.
“They are defined clearly and wouldn’t be directly affected at all if, for example, there was a ballistic nuclear attack in Ukraine, in the region.”
There’s no necessary contradiction between that statement and the message from Borrell, given the EU official’s emphasis that the Western response he had in mind is “not a nuclear answer.” Polish officials have made the same distinction while arguing for a “devastating” response to any nuclear attack.
“To the best of our knowledge, Putin is threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil, not to attack NATO, which means that NATO should respond in a conventional way,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said last month. “But the response should be devastating. And I suppose this is the clear message that the NATO alliance is sending to Russia right now.”
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Borrell continued to assert the EU’s ability, and willingness, to respond to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. “There are people who say that this war means the end for the European Union to have a foreign policy because we are following, blindly, the United States,” he said. “And from my side, it is just the contrary: this war has been an occasion for the European Union to be more assertive and to push for the creation of a European stand from the foreign policy side and also from the military and defense perspective.”
