• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was considering changing the country's nuclear weapons rules.
• An attack on Russia by a nuclear-backed state would be considered a “joint attack.”
• Military analysts say Putin is trying to intimidate the West.

President Vladimir Putin is stepping up his nuclear threats against the West as the United States and its allies hesitate to allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons it provides on targets in Russia.

At a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Putin said Russia was considering updating its nuclear doctrine so that an attack on Russia by a country allied with a nuclear power would be considered a joint attack.

The comments were a thinly veiled reference to Ukraine, which is seeking permission to use long-range missiles supplied by countries including the United States, France and Britain to attack targets deep inside Russia.

“We see that the modern military and political situation is changing dynamically and we must take this into account,” he said.

Putin said this included the “emergence of new sources of military threats and risks to Russia and our allies.”

Two weeks ago, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Joe Biden discussed lifting restrictions on Ukraine's use of long-range weapons at a meeting at the White House.

Although US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a lifting of restrictions after the meeting, talks are reportedly ongoing and no final decision has been made.

Ukraine has long argued that it needs to use the weapons to hit military sites and airfields in Russia that are crucial to its invasion force in Ukraine. But the US has hesitated, fearing it could cross Russia's “red lines” and provoke a nuclear attack.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said Putin's recent comments were likely hollow threats intended to intimidate the West.

The Russian president, they said, wanted to “breathe new life into the Kremlin's tired nuclear saber-rattling information operation and trigger a new wave of panic among Western policymakers at a particularly critical moment in the West's political discussions about Ukraine's ability to use Western weapons.” , trigger.” Weapons provided.

Putin has in the past proposed a number of red lines in response to Western support for Ukraine, including designating captured territories that would be defended with nuclear weapons as part of Russia.

Some analysts are urging caution: George Beebe, a former CIA Russia analysis chief, and Suzanne Loftus, a research fellow in the Quincy Institute's Eurasia Program, warned in an article for Responsible Statecraft last year that the West may not know it Russia's red line crossed lines until it was “too late”.

The Financial Times reported that Putin considered using tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine after it pushed back Russian forces at the start of a full-scale invasion in 2022, but was deterred by China's leader Xi Jinping.