Ex-NATO chief confirms US warned Russia of conventional destruction over 2022 nuclear threats
In autumn 2022, as roughly 20,000 Russian troops faced capture on the west bank of the Dnipro, the Kremlin telephoned Paris, London, and Washington warning of nuclear weapons use. Admiral Rob Bauer, who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, said the US response was that any nuclear strike would be met with the conventional destruction of Russian forces in Ukraine. Russia did not use a nuclear weapon.
Admiral Rob Bauer, who chaired NATO's Military Committee from 2021 to 2025, confirmed that the United States warned Russia in autumn 2022 that any nuclear strike against Ukraine would be met with the conventional destruction of Russian forces. Bauer disclosed the exchange in an interview with Euromaidan Press at the GLOBSEC 2026 forum in Prague, published on 6 June 2026.
According to Bauer, the Kremlin's nuclear threats arrived in September 2022 as roughly 20,000 Russian troops faced capture on the west bank of the Dnipro River, with the Antonivskyi Bridge knocked out by HIMARS strikes. "The Russians started to make phone calls to Paris, London, and Washington about the use of nuclear weapons," Bauer said. "Nobody knows exactly what the reply was from the capitals, but in the end they didn't use it. I heard at some point that the response was that if the Russians would have done that, they would have been taken out conventionally by the Americans."
Bauer described the message conveyed to Moscow as: "Don't even try to do this. Keep this a conventional fight, which is bad enough, but don't go into the nuclear territory because you will be punished—that you will be very, very sorry that you ever started thinking about this." Russia did not use a nuclear weapon. "So I think in that sense we were not hijacked by the Russians," Bauer said.
Bauer acknowledged that the West practiced "self-restraint" in Ukraine by blocking deliveries of tanks, HIMARS, F-16s, ATACMs, and missiles. "If we had done something else in 2022 with regard to the weapons that we gave, you might have won," he said. He also reaffirmed his November 2022 position on nuclear deterrence: "I still stand by what I said. I think if the Russians were not a nuclear-capable armed force, we would have gone in pretty quickly as the Alliance."
The full interview was published by Euromaidan Press on 6 June 2026.