WASHINGTON, October 4. /TASS/. Russia is adjusting nuclear "red lines" in response to changes in the deployment of US nuclear forces and to the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine, James W. Carden, a retired diplomat and former adviser to the US panel of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission on the Development of Bilateral Cooperation, said in an article for The American Conservative magazine.

"Russia is responding to the change in our nuclear posture as well as to the billions of dollars the collective West is pumping into the Ukrainian war effort by re-drawing its own nuclear 'redlines’," the expert wrote. Cardin added that the US authorities "repeatedly and blithely" underestimated Russia's warnings regarding nuclear escalation.

The retired diplomat emphasized that decisions taken by several consecutive US administrations have only aggravated the situation in the field of nuclear deterrence. He recalled the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty under George W. Bush and its pullout from the Open Skies and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaties when Donald Trump was in the White House. "Last year the US spent $51 billion on nuclear weapons, accounting for 80% of the increase in nuclear spending by the nine nuclear armed countries in 2023. And then there is the plan, agreed to under President Obama, to update the entire strategic nuclear triad (i.e. the launching of nuclear weapons by land, sea and air) at the cost of $1.5 trillion. All of which is being done, no doubt, for defensive purposes," the author of the article noted ironically.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the forthcoming adjustments to the nuclear doctrine on September 25 at a permanent meeting of the Security Council. Among the proposed amendments are the interpretation as an attack any nuclear power’s support for a non-nuclear country that is at war with Russia and guarantees of a nuclear response to an attack on Russia's ally Belarus. The list of countries and military alliances and military threats to which nuclear deterrence applies is to be expanded.