Tactical nuclear weapons have smaller warheads and are designed to achieve a specific battlefield objective, compared to strategic bombs that are meant to target and destroy entire cities.

Pro-war Kremlin outriders have repeatedly urged the use of nuclear weapons both inside and outside of Ukraine.

Ukrainian gains on the battlefield are often met with calls for the use of a tactical strike to protect against potential advances into Russian-occupied territories.

The Moscow-based Council for Foreign and Defence Policy, a think-tank that shapes Russian government thinking, this year proposed a “demonstrative” nuclear explosion to deter the West from sending arms to Ukraine.

The southern and central military districts are two of the five force groupings that make up Russia’s armed forces.

The Russian-occupied areas of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fall under the umbrella of the southern district.

Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed the four Ukrainian oblasts via a series of sham referendums in September 2022.