"Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too": Russian Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons after the Invasion of Ukraine
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11230%2F25%3A10498622" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11230/25:10498622 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=c_40zsrNWr" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=c_40zsrNWr</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogaf012" target="_blank" >10.1093/jogss/ogaf012</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
"Hope the Russians Love Their Children Too": Russian Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons after the Invasion of Ukraine
Original language description
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, experts have expressed concerns that Moscow's nuclear saber-rattling may have eroded the "nuclear taboo" and led to increased support for the use of nuclear weapons in Russian society. To investigate public attitudes toward nuclear use in Russia, we conducted a preregistered survey experiment on a representative sample of the Russian population. Our results show that despite significant shifts in the regional security environment, the Kremlin's belligerent rhetoric, and calls for nuclear strikes from politicians, experts, and journalists, public support for using nuclear weapons against NATO has remained virtually unchanged post-invasion. We suggest that this remarkable stability of the "atomic aversion" may stem from two countervailing factors: normalization of the idea of nuclear use in Russian society and deterrence through heightened concerns about NATO's retaliation. Our findings also demonstrate that Russian citizens disapprove of nuclear weapon use similarly in scenarios involving a conflict over Crimea with Ukraine and a Russia-NATO conflict in the Baltics. However, we observed a somewhat stronger public approval of a demonstrative nuclear explosion, a policy option recently proposed by Russian military experts. Our findings contribute to the scholarly literature on the strength of the nuclear nonuse norm in non-Western countries and to ongoing policy debates regarding domestic constraints on the Kremlin’s decision to use nuclear weapons to achieve foreign policy objectives.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50601 - Political science
Result continuities
Project
—
Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
The Journal of Global Security Studies
ISSN
2057-3170
e-ISSN
2057-3189
Volume of the periodical
10
Issue of the periodical within the volume
3
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
20
Pages from-to
1-20
UT code for WoS article
001484393900001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-105002305507