US President Joe Biden has warned that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is at its highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and that Vladimir Putin is "not joking" about using tactical nuclear weapons.
It came as Russian officials spoke about possibly using such weapons following significant setbacks in the war against Ukraine. Speaking on Thursday at a fundraising event, Mr Biden said the Russian president was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.” He warned: “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”
The US president said he feared that the use of a lower-yield tactical weapon could spiral out of control, resulting in global destruction. He said: "I don’t there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
For a while now, US officials have warned that Russia could use weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine as it suffered numerous failures on the battlefield. However, they said recently that they saw no reason to change Washington’s own alert posture.
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