Russia’s ATAMCS Dilemma: Escalate the War or Pursue Peace?

By Mikhail Troitskiy, Visiting Scholar at the Fletcher Russia and Eurasia Program

​Faced with new Western munitions aiding Ukraine like ATACMS, Russia must choose between escalating the conflict or pursuing peace to prevent further setbacks. Limited escalation options and the complexities of nuclear deterrence make a prolonged, open-ended war the most probable scenario in the months ahead.

The lifting of restrictions by the Biden administration and the UK government on the use of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles has confronted Russia with a difficult choice: expedite a settlement of the conflict or escalate to prevent further erosion of Western self-imposed constraints on lethal supplies to Ukrainian armed forces.

At the time of the first ATACMS strike in Russia’s Kursk region, Moscow was hardly seeking ceasefire opportunities.

Instead, it was escalating. On November 17, it conducted one of the strongest missile attacks in months, primarily targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure but also inflicting civilian casualties and destroying apartment buildings and hotels. North Korean deployments on the battlefront have also been increasing and are likely no longer limited to Russia’s internationally recognized territory around Kursk. It remains a mystery why Moscow has been escalating demonstratively despite the call not to do that reportedly made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whom the Kremlin expects to precipitate a settlement on terms favorable to Russia by scaling down support for Kyiv.

While the Kremlin is not willing to settle, ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes present significant challenges. First and foremost, it has become harder for Russia to push Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region, where Ukrainian artillery can now more effectively target Russian munitions depots and command centers. Supplies of American anti-personnel mines aggravate the threat of Ukrainian entrenchment in Russian territory around Kursk. 

That, in turn, makes a ceasefire based on freezing the current line of control unpalatable to Moscow, which cannot accept territorial losses and is unwilling to trade a significant chunk of occupied Ukrainian lands for Ukraine’s withdrawal from Kursk.

The Kremlin is under increasing stress as it tries to contain the political fallout from the discontent among displaced Kursk region residents protesting inadequate support and lack of compensation from the government. Because creating precedents of government accountability for Ukraine’s incursions into Russia is dangerous, Moscow moved to reinstate incompetent local Kursk officials who had tendered resignations in the face of criticism. 

Should the war advance further into Russian territory under the cover of ATACMS, protests are likely to grow amid the dysfunctionality and corruption of local authorities. Moreover, because the supplies of ATACMS and Storm Shadow may be limited, Ukraine may choose a targeting strategy that not only impacts the battlefield but also increases social and economic pressure on Russia’s regional and potentially central authorities.

When it comes to escalation, Russia has only a few options. 

The most concerning one is resorting to battlefield nuclear weapons. Some analysts have reasonably suggested that the incentives for nuclear use may be highest not when a nuclear-armed state is cornered and faced with the prospect of battlefield defeat, but when that state feels it stands within one step of victory, as the Kremlin might now be thinking based on the progress of the Russian offensive in Donbas, but is being kept from making that last step by some interfering force, such as stepped-up NATO support for Ukraine. 

Removing that final obstacle may warrant, in the eyes of aggressor policymakers, a decisive show of resolve in the form of a nuclear strike.

For now, the Kremlin made a show of publicizing a new iteration of its nuclear doctrine the day after the lifting of restrictions on the use of Western munitions was confirmed. The new document provides for the use of nuclear weapons to repel a conventional attack that would pose a “critical threat” to Russia’s “sovereignty and/or territorial integrity,” an “existential” threat that featured in previous iterations of the nuclear doctrine is no longer required. 

The threshold is further lowered by calling “nuclear deterrence” a means to “neutralize the military danger” of an adversary’s actions, “aimed at isolating a part of the Russian Federation territory,” or causing, “environmental or social catastrophes.”

These loose formulas, however, contravene the qualification of nuclear use as an “extreme and forced measure.” It seems as if at least two groups of authors with diverging agendas were drafting the 2024 version of the doctrine. 

While one group was trying to lower the nuclear threshold, the other sought to convince international players that no significant change of doctrine was happening and that Moscow would not recklessly engage in nuclear blackmail. As a result, the credibility of the doctrine may have been undermined, as few Russian adversaries would believe that a nuclear superpower can conduct nuclear strikes in response to an attempt to “isolate” Russia’s peripheral territory, such as Kursk or the northwesternmost Kaliningrad region.

Even if the Kremlin decided to conduct a nuclear strike, it would not be clear what target to choose to convey the right message. Bombing Russia’s own Kursk region to defeat the invading Ukrainian troops is not an option. 

At the same time, striking anywhere in Ukraine would do nothing to liberate Kursk but would lead to major escalation with NATO and alienate Russia’s sympathizers and “neutrals,” such as China or India. Finally, attacking a NATO country, as some Russian pundits have proposed, would result in a war that Russia has no chance of winning and a significant chance of losing.

It also appears that the Kursk incursion crossed a brighter red line than the addition of several hundred Western missiles to Ukraine’s arsenal. Once fired, most of those missiles are likely to be intercepted, so there is no imminent threat of a major defeat for Russia. It may therefore seem to many in the Russian leadership that it is now both too late and unnecessary to carry out nuclear retaliation. 

In an interesting PR stunt, the Russian ambassador to the UK all but disavowed the nuclear saber-rattling by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who, among other diatribes, recently proposed “sinking” the British Isles.

With nuclear strikes off the table, Moscow is left with limited escalatory options. One would include sabotage activities, such as cutting underwater cables. Such acts are likely to be quickly investigated and attributed to the perpetrator, further provoking NATO to increase pressure on Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine and elsewhere. 

Western governments believe that yet another option for Moscow is a missile strike on an unprecedented scale against Ukrainian cities. However, another massive missile salvo is also likely to trigger more military support for Ukraine by the outgoing Biden administration as well as European governments like the UK and France. It may also tilt Berlin toward lifting restrictions on the transfer to Ukraine of the German-made Taurus missile, which has a range longer than that of ATACMS and Storm Shadow.

The lack of immediate opportunities to tilt the balance of the war toward either side, as well as difficulties in identifying focal points for even an interim cessation of hostilities, such as a mutually acceptable separation line, make an open-ended continuation of the war the likeliest scenario for the months to come.

(This post is republished from The National Interest.)