Joe Biden has warned the world could face “Armageddon” if Vladimir Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon to try to win the war in Ukraine.
The US president made his most outspoken remarks to date about the threat of nuclear war, at a Democratic fundraiser in New York, saying it was the closest the world had come to nuclear catastrophe for sixty years.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” he said.
“We’ve got a guy I know pretty well,” Biden said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He’s not joking when he talks about the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons, biological or chemical weapons, or both, because his military is, shall we say, significantly underperforming.”
Putin and his officials have repeatedly threatened to use Russia’s nuclear arsenal to deter the US and its allies from supporting Ukraine and assisting it in resisting Russia’s all-out invasion launched in February. One concern is that he may use a short-range “tactical” nuclear weapon to halt Ukraine’s counter-offensive and force Kyiv to negotiate and cede territory.
If Russia did use a nuclear weapon, it would leave the US and its allies with the dilemma of how to respond, with most experts and former officials predicting that if Washington struck back militarily, it would most likely be with conventional weapons, to try to avert rapid escalation to an all-out nuclear war. But Biden said on Thursday night: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
“For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the threat of a nuclear weapon if things continue on their current course,” the president said. “We’re trying to figure out where Putin’s exit is.” Where does he look for a way out? Where does he end up losing not only face but also significant power?”
According to US intelligence agencies, Putin has come to see defeat in Ukraine as an existential threat to his regime, which he associates with an existential threat to Russia, potentially justifying the use of nuclear weapons.
Earlier on Thursday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin understood that the “world will never forgive” a Russian nuclear strike.
“He understands that after the use of nuclear weapons he would be unable any more to preserve, so to speak, his life, and I’m confident of that,” Zelenskiy said.
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