According to US President Joe Biden, the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Mr. Joe Biden stated that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was “not joking” when he mentioned using tactical nuclear weapons in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis.
Joe Biden stated that Putin was “not joking”
He went on to say that the US was “trying to figure out” Mr. Putin’s way out of the conflict.
The United States and the European Union have previously stated that Mr. Putin’s nuclear threats should be taken seriously.
Despite Moscow’s nuclear hints, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last week that the US had seen no indications that Russia was preparing to use a nuclear weapon in the near future.
For months, US officials have warned that if Russia suffers setbacks on the battlefield, it may resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction.
According to our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg, during a speech last Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the United States set a “precedent” by using nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War II.
Mr. Putin has also threatened to use all available means to defend Russian territory.
President Joe Biden stated that Putin was “not joking” when he mentioned using tactical nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons – “because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.”
“For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to use nuclear weapons if things continue on their current course,” Mr. Biden told Democratic colleagues.
“Not since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis have we faced the prospect of Armageddon.”
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev came dangerously close to a nuclear war over the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Cuba.
Many experts believe that the confrontation was the closest the world has ever come to full-fledged nuclear war.
Mr. Biden warned Democratic colleagues that using tactical nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons could quickly spiral out of control.
He was speaking at the home of James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, in New York for a Democratic fundraiser.
On the battlefield, Mr. Putin is confronted with a difficult situation. Even as he signed the final papers formally annexing four regions of Ukraine – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson – Kyiv’s forces were advancing within those claimed areas.
Hundreds of thousands of men have fled Russia instead of being drafted to fight in Ukraine.
Previously, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Moscow’s nuclear threats as a “constant narrative of Russian officials and propagandists.”
“To allow the possibility of nuclear conflict in thoughts and words is a sure step toward allowing it in reality.”
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry told reporters that Moscow’s position that nuclear war “must never be waged” had not changed.