The United States states it has actually independently cautioned Russia of ‘catastrophic’ consequences if it goes nuclear in Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine.
Top US officials have confirmed that the Russian Government has been told that using nuclear weapons is a red line, amid growing unease about escalating tensions.
It comes after President Putin made a thinly veiled threat to use nukes in a speech last Wednesday, when he announced the mobilisation of 300,000 reservists following major Ukrainian gains.
Referenda on whether to annex parts of Ukraine – widely condemned as a farce by the international community – have added to concerns – since experts fear it could allow the Russian leader to claim his country is under attack if Ukrainian forces try to retake those areas.
In an interview broadcast yesterday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed the private warnings about the ‘horrific’ fall out.
‘We have been very clear with the Russians publicly, and, as well as privately, to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons,’ he told the CBS News program ‘60 Minutes’.
‘It’s very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. And we’ve made that very clear’.
‘Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well.’
Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, said in a separate interview yesterday that the US’s warnings came at ‘very high levels’ and underlined the ‘catastrophic consequences’ of using nuclear arms.
He claimed the United States and its allies would ‘respond decisively’.
Sullivan told CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’: ‘We have been clear and specific about what that will entail.’
The two nations have the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenals.
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Yet Russian military doctrine permits the use of so-called ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons to force an enemy to retreat.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asked the day before the US comments, at the United Nations on Saturday, about Putin’s threats, said only that Moscow’s doctrine ‘is an open document.’
The USA made a similar move in 1945, when it nuked Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, days before the Second World War ended.
No country has used nuclear weapons since the two attacks, while killed more than 200,000 people.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told ‘Face the Nation’ that Putin’s veiled nuclear threat ‘could be a reality’.
He branded Russian military activity at nuclear power plants in Ukraine are ‘the first steps of his nuclear blackmail.’
‘He (Putin) wants to scare the whole world.
‘I don’t think he’s bluffing. I think the world is deterring it and containing this threat. We need to keep putting pressure on him and not allow him to continue.’
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