ABSTRACT
The official nuclear policy of Russia is formalized in the law “On defense” of 1993, in the Russian “Military Doctrine” of 2000 and in the official “Strategy for the National Security of the Russian Federation till 2020”, a document signed and confirmed by President Medvedev on May 12, 2009.1
In accordance with these documents Russia will continue to be a nuclear power for a long time to come. Unlike the former “Main Principles of a Military Doctrine” from 1993 and the declaration by the former Soviet government that the USSR would not be the first to use nuclear weapons, the new military doctrine declares that
The Russian Federation will reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in a situation when nuclear weapons and other kinds of weapons of massdestruction are being used against it and (or) its allies, and also against a large scale aggression with conventional weapons in a crisis situation where the national security of The Russian Federation is at stake.2
