From Moscow with a Mushroom Cloud? Russian Public Attitudes to the Use of Nuclear Weapons in a Conflict with NATO

Despite the surge of survey experiments on public attitudes towards nuclear weapon use, there is a lack of such studies in non-Western countries. To address this gap, we conducted a survey experiment on a representative sample of Russian citizens. We designed a hypothetical scenario of a conflict between Russia and NATO in the Baltics, in which Moscow considered a limited use of nuclear weapons as an “escalate-to-deescalate” strategy. Our findings show a strong aversion towards nuclear use, with an overwhelming majority preferring to risk a military defeat than to agree with a demonstrative nuclear explosion or a strike against a NATO base. An escalation of a conflict involving NATO missile strikes on Russian territory had statistically insignificant effect on the approval of nuclear use. Further analyses showed that participants’ gender, moral values, and in-group/out-group attitudes are among the key factors explaining the relative (un-)willingness of Russians to support nuclear strikes.