Meduza’s daily newsletter: Thursday, September 26, 2024 Evan Gershkovich’s Russian judge attributes speedy verdict to ‘quick typing,’ Wildberries founder’s ex thanks Ramzan Kadyrov for saving his life, and Zelensky will meet Trump after all

Putin wants to ‘clarify’ Russia’s nuclear doctrine, but any escalatory actions will depend on how the Kremlin interprets its own wording

At a National Security Council meeting on September 25, Vladimir Putin announced several proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear deterrence doctrine. The proposals, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later called a “signal” to Western countries, would expand the number of scenarios in which Moscow reserves the right to use nuclear weapons. The announcement comes as Ukraine is pushing its allies to lift restrictions on using Western-made long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory. The Kremlin’s proposed “clarifications” are likely aimed at countering the threat of such attacks and weakening Western support for Ukraine. Upon analyzing Putin’s remarks, Meduza found at least two conditions for the use of nuclear weapons by Moscow that arguably have already occurred during Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, this doesn’t mean that Putin is any closer to launching a nuclear strike; in all likelihood, this rhetoric is meant to act as a deterrent — for now.

The suggested “clarifications” to Russia’s nuclear doctrine:

• Expanding the category of states and military alliances against which Russia exercises nuclear deterrence and expanding the list of military threats “to be neutralized by nuclear deterrence measures.”
• Considering aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state as “their joint attack” on the Russian Federation.
• Considering the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons upon receiving reliable information about “a massive launch of aerospace attack weapons and their crossing of our state border.” Putin referred to strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, hypersonic and “other” lethal aircraft, specifically.
• Reserving the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus as a member of the Union State.
• Using nuclear weapons “if the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to the sovereignty” of Russia and Belarus.

Read Meduza’s assessment of whether these proposed changes can be interpreted in ways that make nuclear war more likely.

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The news in brief

• 🇺🇸 Volodymyr Zelensky met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Thursday. Zelensky and Biden will meet again in Germany next month for further discussions in the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. Contrary to earlier reports, a day after criticizing Ukraine’s president for “refusing to make a deal,” Donald Trump said he will meet on Friday with Zelensky at Trump Tower in New York.
• 🇳🇴 The Norwegian authorities have denied political asylum to Russian draft dodger Pavel Suetin, citing Vladimir Putin’s informal announcement that he’s paused mobilization. Norway’s Immigration Service argued that Suetin faces no “risk of persecution or a real threat of execution, torture, or other inhuman or degrading treatment” if he returns home.
• 🇺🇸 Senior Pentagon officials have recommended that the U.S. provide Ukraine with white phosphorus munitions (for smoke screens and to light up battlefields), but the White House has rejected the idea several times (the chemical burns human skin and threatens nearby civilians), reports NBC News
• 💾 The Digital Development Ministry has advised Russians to download their data from Google and switch to domestic platforms and 2FA systems, warning that the company has started limiting the creation of new accounts using Russian telephone numbers. (However, industry experts say there’s been no change at Google, whose SMS gateway in Russia has suffered technical glitches for years.)
• 🧑‍🎤 Elena Martynova — the PR spin doctor who made her husband, “Shaman,” a national pop star — announced on Thursday that the couple is divorcing after six years. Shaman has been the most visible entertainer involved in Russia’s pro-invasion propaganda campaign during the Ukraine War.
• 🏳️‍⚧️ Two Russian streaming services that carry the American television series Twin Peaks have censored scenes featuring actor David Duchovny as a transgender woman. However, Kion and Amediateka did not censor Duchovny’s trans character in the show’s more recent third season.
• 🪖 Following a reported death in the Federal Security Service’s Special Operations Center, Novaya Gazeta Europe journalists say FSB special forces are fighting against Ukrainian occupation forces in Russia’s Kursk region. (The unit is designed for counterterrorism work, not conventional combat against a regular army, but appears to be caught up in the region’s ongoing counterterrorism operation.)
• 🛢️ The state-owned oil company Rosneft topped Forbes Russia’s ranking of the largest Russian companies by net profit: more than 1.5 trillion rubles ($16.5 billion) in 2023. Gazprom, the list’s most profitable company in 2022, didn’t even crack this year’s top 100 after a record loss of 583 billion rubles ($6.3 billion). The combined profits of the 100 companies on the 2023 list exceeded 13.2 trillion rubles ($142.8 billion) — more than 42 percent higher than the year earlier.
• 🚨 RuNet pioneer and former Communications Deputy Minister Alexei Soldatov is dying in prison, according to his son, investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov. This summer, Soldatov Sr. was sentenced to two years on spurious charges of abuse of office. “Last Friday, he lost consciousness and collapsed on a floor,” his son revealed on Twitter.
• ⚖️ The regional court judge who convicted Wall Street Journalist correspondent Evan Gershkovich of espionage in July 2024 said at a public meeting on Thursday that he reached his verdict so quickly (there were only three days of hearings) because he’s “a fast typer” who learned to churn through cases when he worked as a city judge. (Gershkovich and 25 other prisoners were freed several days later in the most extensive prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War.)
• 🙏 Vladyslav Bakalchuk, the soon-to-be ex-husband of Wildberries marketplace founder Tatyana Kim, said in an interview with a relatively obscure YouTube channel that he owes his life and good health to Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov. (The interview was recorded two days before a deadly shootout at a Wildberries office in Moscow that erupted after Bakalchuk and an entourage of trained fighters tried to force their way in.) Bakalchuk spent most of the interview criticizing the merger between Wildberries and outdoor advertiser Russ Group, which he vocally opposes.

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