Vladimir Putin’s Russia has changed its military doctrine, lowering the threshold to trigger a nuclear attack. “Aggression against the Russian Federation by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered a joint attack,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

“Putin is being very specific,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) surmised on “Washington Watch” Tuesday. “Essentially what he’s describing is [considering] the United States of America [as participating] in ‘a joint attack’ with Ukraine, by virtue of us being a nuclear-armed power and attacking their homeland directly with munitions that we’ve provided, even though Ukraine has been the one to pull the trigger.”

“The question will be, is he going to actually … do something about it?” Perry added. “I don’t know exactly what to make of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling, but I don’t think that that’s something that we want to take lightly. … Nuclear war is something you can barely talk about, let alone experience.”

Russia announced its aggressive doctrinal change on Tuesday, shortly after Ukraine fired six U.S.-made ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) into Russia’s western Bryansk region. The Russian military said it shot down five missiles and damaged the sixth, and that fragments of the missile landed on a Russian military facility and started a fire. Ukraine said it hit an ammunition warehouse and caused 12 secondary explosions.

This was Ukraine’s first use of ATACMS in Russian territory after President Joe Biden finally permitted the fledgling democracy to launch the powerful weapons into Russian territory. Previous Ukrainian attacks deep into Russia have used domestically produced weapons, such as explosive drones, but the American-made missile systems are more destructive and harder to intercept.

Despite providing lip service to Ukraine’s war effort, the Biden administration has repeatedly slow-walked weapons deliveries to Ukraine — including the ATACMS — just as it has with Israel. After delivering weapons, the Biden administration has restricted Ukraine’s use of those weapons, attempting to dictate its military operations, just as it has with Israel.

Ukraine requested the ATACMS when Russia first invaded, in February 2022, when delivering the weapons was easiest to justify, but the Biden administration refused. Biden finally agreed to send the ATACMS in September 2023 but did not approve the secret transfer until February 2024, after which the missiles arrived in April.

However, Biden still forbade Ukraine to use the long-range weapons against targets in Russian territory — the primary reason they wanted them — over fears Russia might consider that an escalation. During a September 2024 visit to the White House, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky asked Biden to let Ukraine use the weapons to strike Russian targets, as a key part of a “victory plan” he presented for winning the war.

Two months later, Biden has finally agreed to grant Ukraine permission to fire the missiles into Russian territory, but only after an election in which American voters resoundingly rebuked his administration, and only two months before he will turn over the keys to president-elect Donald Trump.

Now, it’s too late for the ATACMS to do significant damage. When the Russians discovered Ukraine had received these longer-range missiles, they redeployed many of their forces beyond the missiles’ 190-mile range. Now, 90% of Russia’s devastating bombers are stationed outside the ATACMS’ range. If Ukraine had been given immediate permission to strike targets in Russia, the ATACMS could have done significant damage. But, while Biden dithered, Putin acted to minimize the damage Ukraine’s new, high-tech weapons could cause. Consequently, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin doubted whether the missile systems would be “decisive.”

What took Biden so long? And why did he finally now authorize Ukraine to fire the ATACMS into Russia? One anonymous senior official suggested that Biden’s decision came in response to reports that 10,000 North Korean soldiers have secretly entered Russia to fight alongside Russian troops and press back a Ukrainian advance in the Russian region of Kursk — an international escalation of the war.

A second U.S. official anonymously indicated the authorization is designed to help Ukrainian troops hold the territory they recently captured in Kursk, in hopes of using it as a diplomatic bargaining chip. Moscow has reportedly deployed 50,000 troops to Kursk in preparation for a counteroffensive.

Biden’s change of heart also came after a Russian missile strike on Sunday killed 11 civilians including two children and wounded 80, after a missile carrying indiscriminate cluster munitions struck a residential area. A separate strike on Monday hit apartment buildings in another city, killing eight including one child. However, Russia has carried out such bombing for the whole duration of the war, so it’s unlikely these strikes switched Biden’s thinking.

However, Russia’s decision to lower its threshold for a nuclear strike may result in missile strikes that are far deadlier to civilians. “Should we be concerned about escalation?” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins asked Perry. “The escalation really has been all Russia’s from the start … most recently with introducing North Korean soldiers to the conflict,” Perry responded.

But, he added, “this president — who wasn’t allowed to run a campaign by his own party … because of his cognitive decline — has made the decision on behalf of the United States to essentially allow Ukraine, as a proxy now of the United States, to attack Russia, one of our greatest strategic foes. And I think that’s dangerous.”

Reaching a resolution to the conflict requires all parties to be realistic, explained Perry. “Ukraine wants their territorial integrity, and I support that. They should be a sovereign nation. That includes Crimea,” he said. On the other hand, Russia is “going to be interested in their own sovereignty and protecting their own people and their own borders.” Putin’s propaganda insists that Ukraine’s land and people belong to Russia, but “they’ve got to understand Ukraine has been invaded by them and … Russia’s going to have to be realistic about that.”

“At the same time, I think there are limits to what the United States can do 5,000 miles away from its shores to protect other countries, and Ukraine has to be realistic about that as well,” Perry added.

In any event, resolving the intractable conflict will require creative diplomacy. One potential off-ramp Perry suggested involved both give and take. “Allegedly, at the beginning of this, Russia didn’t want Ukraine to be a NATO nation. And I think that that’s where the center of the discussion should be,” he proposed. “If we can get to a point where Ukraine can receive its territorial integrity back, and there’s a commitment to hold off on a NATO-involved Ukraine, I think that that’s a place where that will end the killing.”

“Quite honestly, I don’t think that Ukraine is ready to be a NATO-aligned nation,” Perry added. “NATO needs to do more of its own work to shore up its own defenses as opposed to relying on the United States of America.” Such an agreement might “be facilitated by the United States once again pledging to support Ukraine if they are not in NATO,” suggested Perkins. “Russia’s probably not going to like that,” Perry responded, but “it might be part of the details.”

However, the quality of the deal the incoming Trump administration is able to negotiate will largely depend on how willing the participants are to keep fighting. Recent Russian actions, such as hiring foreign mercenaries and issuing nuclear threats, suggest the war is not going well for them.

On the other hand, Putin seems increasingly determined to continue fighting at all costs. “I think that we’re looking for the off-ramp more than he is. And that’s very concerning to me,” reflected Perry. “That’s not the best negotiating place for the United States of America, for Europe, or for NATO — or Ukraine.”

Regardless, the lame-duck Biden administration should not be making last-minute policy changes that reduce its successor’s options. “On the issue of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden and his team have spoken like they’re dealing with a five-alarm fire, and then proceeded to act with all the urgency and resolve of your office on a casual Friday afternoon,” quipped National Review’s Jim Geraghty. Then, between losing an election and handing over power, they provoked Russia to issue a provocatory nuclear threat.