CIA Director William Burns cautioned the West against concern about boilerplate Russian nuclear saber-rattling, which ISW has long identified as part of a Kremlin effort to promote Western self-deterrence and influence key moments in Western policy debates about support for Ukraine.

▪️ Burns stated during a panel with United Kingdom Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Chief Richard Moore on September 7 that Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to issue periodic threats of direct confrontation against the West but that these threats should not intimidate the West.

▪️ Burns stated that the CIA had assessed that Russian forces may have considered using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the fall of 2022 and that he was in contact with Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin on the matter.

▪️ The CIA's assessment of possible Russian readiness to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the fall of 2022 corresponded with intensified Russian rhetoric about nuclear confrontation amid the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive operations in Kherson and Kharkiv oblasts.

▪️ This rhetoric was likely more a part of a routine information operation designed to deter Western security assistance to Ukraine than an indicator of Russian readiness to use nuclear weapons, however.