First modification:
Faced with Russia’s thinly disguised threat to use its nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, stated on Thursday, October 6, that “he was not kidding” and recalled that the world “had not faced the possibility of an apocalypse since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis”.
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that the world is in the grip of a nuclear “Armageddon” for the first time since the Cold War.
“We haven’t faced a possible Armageddon since Kennedy and the missile crisis” in Cuba in 1962, Biden said at a Democratic party fundraiser in New York.
President Valdimir Putin is “not kidding” when he threatens to use nuclear weapons to continue his invasion of Ukraine, Biden said.
The president made unusually strong comments about the risks posed by Putin’s nuclear threats while speaking to Democratic supporters at the Manhattan home of James Murdoch, the son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Biden made reference to the nuclear challenge that the then Soviet Union initiated, by stationing missiles in Cuba, in a range close to the United States.
“For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat from the use of nuclear weapons, if indeed things continue the way they are.”
Putin has made thinly veiled threats about the use of nuclear weapons if he considers the options in Ukraine exhausted to curb strong resistance in Western-backed kyiv.
Experts believe that tactical attacks with relatively small arms are possible. But Biden warned that even a tactical attack in a limited area could trigger a larger conflict.
“We have a guy, who I know pretty well,” Biden said. Putin “is not kidding when he talks about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, or chemical or biological weapons, because his military is, shall we say, significantly less capable.”
“However, I don’t think there is the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden said.
“I’m trying to figure out what Putin’s way out is,” Biden said. Where do you find a way out? Where does he see himself in a position that not only loses prestige, but significant power in Russia?” he added.
