Katarzyna Zysk, Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, was the guest speaker at the Bologna Institute for Policy Research for a conference addressing the evolving contours of Russia's approach to strategic and nuclear deterrence.

Professor Zysk opened by presenting the war in Ukraine as a "testing ground" for Russia's deterrence strategy noting the relative coherence of Russian approach to this concept at the outset of the war. She guided the audience through key milestones in Russia's nuclear deterrence doctrine – from the 1993 post-Soviet framework to the present, including during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While the 1990s marked a slow start in preparations for the doctrinal first use of nuclear weapons, the visible change came in 1999 with the Zapad exercises, which simulated a nuclear airstrike on NATO targets. The first-use policy was further corroborated in the military doctrine of 2000. The focus on central role of nuclear weapons continued to grow, accompanied by the accelerating modernisation of the nuclear triad.

In parallel with investments in nuclear capabilities, Moscow developed a doctrinal framework that has increased reliance on conventional strategic capabilities as the core of Russia's non-nuclear deterrence. Gradually, the approach has expanded to include a broad spectrum of non-military ways and means, highlighting an increasingly integrated approach to deterrence, defence and coercive options.

The Russian strategic deterrence concept was put to test during invasion of Ukraine. President Putin has made it clear that, should Russia's sovereignty or existence be threatened, the state would resort to any means necessary, including nuclear force. Such declarations aimed to suggest that Russia has moved closer to the doctrinal threshold for nuclear use. Together with a broad range of nuclear signalling steps, Moscow aimed to convince Western powers that Russia had more at stake in Ukraine and thereby more resolve to take risks, including crossing the nuclear threshold to manipulate the Western perception of threat and grant itself greater room for manoeuvre.

Professor Zysk further emphasised that Russia's deterrence strategy relies also on pre-emptive offensive operations, as illustrated during the first days of invastion that aimed to manipulate the threat perception to shape Western decision-making. To some extent, Russia sees these efforts as partly successful, especially in the initial period of the war: Western powers have ruled out the possibility of sending boots on the ground, enforcing a no-fly zone, declining to supply Ukraine with certain categories of weaponry and imposing limitations on uses of various weapon systems at critical stages of the war. The 2024 amendments to the Russian nuclear doctrine were a part of the plethora of attempts to limit the Western support for Ukraine. It included changing the key phrase describing the conditions for crossing the nuclear threshold from "when the very existence of the state is at stake" to "an aggression creating a critical threat to sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity", thus suggesting a lower nuclear threshold. She argued, however, that neither term has ever been explicitly defined, granting Russia considerable flexibility.

In this evolving context, nuclear capabilities remain at the core of Russia's strategic thinking, intertwined with a full spectrum of non-nuclear and non-military ways and means of warfare. In this multidomain strategy, an prominent role play operations in the cyber and information domain, as well as the use of a broad spectrum of other means, including special operations forces, private military actors, or forein citizens recruited to conduct acts of sabotage. They are a part of what Professor Zysk calls for a perpetual "quiet war" in the "grey zone" of confrontation that Western governments are still struggling to deal with effectively. She also shed light on the increasing integration of AI into selected Russian military weapons and infrastructure, including in the combat management to gain and maintain information superiority by increasing the speed and accuracy of decision-making. While official sources stress human oversight and caution about full autonomy in the nuclear domain, they also highlight the need to avoid too many restrictions as they can push Russia behind in the ongoing technological race.

Overall, Russia's approach to deterrence, based on the three key pillars, blur the distinctions between nuclear, conventional and non-military ways and means of warfare, as well as between peace, crisis, and conflict. The concept is undergoing continuous adaptation, driven in part by lessons from the war in Ukraine. As Zysk concluded, understanding Russian deterrence today requires looking beyond the doctrine and rhetoric, and examining where words intersect with resource allocation, technological innovation, and operational patterns.

hosted by Professor Andrew C. Winner


Katarzyna Zysk is Professor of International Relations and Contemporary History at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS, since 2007) which is part of the Norwegian Defence University College (NDUC) in Oslo. At the IFS, she also served as Deputy Director (2017-2021), as well as Head of Centre for Security Policy, and Director of Research. In 2016, she was also Acting Dean of the NDUC, where she teaches regularly.

Following her 2006 PhD thesis on NATO enlargement, her research has focused on international security, defence, and strategic studies, with a special focus on Russia's military doctrine, strategy, armed forces; security and defence policies; nuclear strategy; naval strategy, security in the Arctic; as well as AI and emerging technologies and defence innovation.

Zysk was visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, The Changing Character of War Centre (CCW) at the University of Oxford, member of the Hoover Institution's Arctic Security Initiative, The Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), and at Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the The US Naval War College (USNWC). She has served as Advisory Board Member of the Transatlantic Deterrence Dialogue Initiative, and she is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Core Group Member of the Russia Transatlantic Forum at the Center for a New American Security.

Her published research has appeared in peer-reviewed and popular outlets, including SAIS Review of International Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Journal of Strategic Studies, Asia Policy, RUSI Journal, Politique Etrangère, Jane's Navy International, War on the Rocks, and others, including a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies she co-edited on ‘Defence Innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution. Security Challenges, Emerging Technologies, and National Responses', where she also contributed a case study on Russia's EDT, AI and defence innovation.

Among her publications: Struggling, Not Crumbling: Russian Defence AI in a Time of War, Russia Military Report, RUSI Commentary (2023); High Hopes Amid Hard Realities. Defense AI in Russia, Defense AI Observatory, DAIO Study 23/11 (2023); Defence Innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution in Russia (also co-editor of the special issue), Journal of Strategic Studies (2021), published by Routledge as a book in 2022; Russia's Military Build-Up in the Arctic: To What End?, Center for Naval Analyses (2020); Escalation and Nuclear Weapons in Russia's Military Strategy, RUSI Journal (2018).

Zysk is a frequent commentator in international media, including in The New York Times, BBC World Service, Euronews, Deutsche Welle, CNN, NPR, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Le Monde, El Pais, Sydney Morning Herald, Die Zeit, Bloomberg, France Culture, Le Figaro, France 24, Politico, Vice News, Defense One, Slate, Radio Canada International, and in others, including contributions to documentary movies (most recently for Discovery Channel and Bloomberg TV)