Russia discourages Europeanized nuclear deterrence efforts

John Hart, Non-Resident Scholar at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (views expressed are personal) on developments in European nuclear programs.

On 8 April 2026 Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) issued a press release attacking Europe for “plumbing the depths of its own madness and political irresponsibility” and being “driven by pathological Russophobia.”[1] Russia’s security agency accused the EU of having instigated Russia’s war against Ukraine in order to facilitate a Hitleresque-European expansionism eastwards and, in so doing, undermining international security, including with respect to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The SVR also accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of spearheading a plan to replace the US nuclear umbrella with a European one. It said this effort entails the covert establishment of a European nuclear industrial base, while France and the United Kingdom harmonize their respective nuclear doctrines in parallel. It said the EU intends to maintain the option of creating a European nuclear weapons command and control structure. France and the UK are to provide military-technical capabilities, supported by financial and scientific and technological contributions from non-nuclear weapon possessor EU member states.

The SVR also said that Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain are capable of contributing to a European nuclear weapon project, partly because they possess spent nuclear fuel or hot cell workspaces that can be used to extract plutonium at facilities located in Dresden, Erlangen, Jülich, and Karlsruhe.[2] The SVR also stated that German specialists are able to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU) (presumably weapons-grade) at a facility in Gronau within one-month. The SVR called on the United States to prevent the Europeans from implementing its nuclear weapon ambitions and thereby instigating a global nuclear arms race.[3]

The identity of the facilities and the SVR’s criteria for naming them (and not others) are unclear. The SVR appears to be referencing URENCO’s Gronau centrifuge facility which enriches U-235 up to 6 per cent,[4] a research reactor at Dresden’s Technical University’s Centre for Energy Technology,[5] the Institute of Fusion Energy and Nuclear Waste Management (Jülich Research Centre) which conducts research on fusion and the safe disposal of radioactive waste,[6] and Framatome GmbH (Erlangen) which conducts industrial research and testing of pressurized water reactors and operates a radiochemistry and hot cell laboratory, respectively.[7] The Institute for Nuclear Waste Disposal (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) conducts research on nuclear waste disposal and nuclear waste management.[8] Karlsruhe also hosts the EU Joint Research Centre’s (JRC) principal hub for nuclear safety and security research.[9]

Russia also informed the 11th Review Conference to the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) on 29 April that:

“For several years now, the United Kingdom has been enhancing its strategic nuclear capabilities. It has also redeployed US nuclear weapons on its national territory and announced its participation in the further expansion of NATO’s ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangements, a practices that is deeply destabilising and has undermined the NPT regime for many decades. France, which announced on the eve of the Review Conference plans to increase it nuclear capabilities, is actively drawing European non-nuclear weapon States into arrangements reminiscent of the so-called ‘extended nuclear deterrence’ framework practiced by the US in the Asia-Pacific region, which are intended to reinforce the US ‘nuclear umbrella’ over Europe.

All these developments are taking place with the vigorous approval and, as has been already noted, often the direct involvement of other countries of the ‘collective West,’ many of which are ever more insistently making suggestions that are detrimental to the NPT, implying the possibility of a move towards the possession of nuclear weapons. The EU leadership appears to be guided by similar considerations. Moreover, information has come to light that certain actors in London and Paris were seriously considering the outrageous and utterly unacceptable idea of transferring elements of nuclear weapons to Ukraine, a step that would directly undermine the NPT’s core provisions. This crosses all conceivable boundaries, particularly given that we have not even outline all of our concerns regarding the obstacles created by Western States to the full implementation of the NPT objectives. This is set out in detail in the relevant section of the National Report of the Russian Federation, as well as in several of our working papers submitted in the lead-up to the Review Conference.”[10]

In May Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “We must confidently, calmly, firmly, and responsibly demonstrate our capabilities to cool down the hotheads, of which there are many along our western borders, who are playing with various umbrella concepts” and that no “umbrellas” will save those who “dream of victory over Russia” in “their inflamed minds.”[11]

In June Russia’s foreign ministry reiterated yet again that the country’s nuclear doctrine does not exclude the use of such weapons in cases where the territorial integrity of Russia is under threat.[12] In 2022 Russia incorporated four of Ukraine’s regions (Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia)—none of which it actually fully controls to the present-day. Russian occupation forces have in fact experienced a net territorial loss starting in about April of this year.[13]

Russia’s information shaping efforts have heightened nuclear insecurity perceptions in Europe, including by instrumentalizing commentary on the safety and security of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and conducting periodic military exercises involving nuclear warfare scenarios. In May 2026 Belarus and Russia conducted a military exercise that included the loading of tactical nuclear warheads onto Iskander-M missiles. Russia is also continuing to develop, test and put into production nuclear-capable missile systems such as the Avangard-, Kinzhal-, Sarmat-, and Oreshnik-systems.[14]

Russia seeks to dissuade states from sending weapons or peacekeepers to Ukraine, emphasizes that it remains an important nuclear weapon possessor state, signals ambiguity about its nuclear weapon doctrine, supports national interests narratives based on spheres of influence, characterizes Ukraine and EU actors as having fascist or nazi sympathies or ideology, and, last but not least, seeks to confuse or slow Western decision making (e.g. by maintaining that Ukraine is using chemical weapons against Russian forces).[15]

*This is an extract of the forthcoming June issue article -- European security and defence architecture and its nuclear dimension