President Joe Biden spoke of nuclear “Armageddon” in a warning about escalation in Russia’s war in Ukraine during a speech to Democrats on Thursday.
At a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said the risk has not been this high since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when John F. Kennedy was president, going further in rhetoric than any other member of his administration.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden said in New York City.
ZELENSKY CALLS FOR ‘PREVENTATIVE ACTION’ FROM NATO TO KEEP RUSSIA FROM USING NUKES
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.” This is because, Biden said, “his military is — you might say — significantly underperforming,” according to the Associated Press.
Last month, Putin raised concerns in the West when he vowed to defend the “territorial integrity of our motherland” by “all the means at our disposal” — remarks that were widely interpreted as a nuclear threat.
“I don’t think there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden said.
Russia has suffered a string of snags on the battlefield in Ukraine, which it invaded with a full-scale attack in February. Recently, Russian forces pulled back from the eastern city of Lyman, located in the Donetsk region. The setback came on the heels of Putin signing an agreement to annex four regions in Ukraine, including the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. Moscow is moving forward with the annexation despite an outcry from the West that it is in violation of international law. Putin also ordered a “partial mobilization” of reservists in late September.
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Western officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and those with NATO, have warned of consequences for Russia deploying nukes. “The response will be such that the Russians will regret what they have done,” Dutch Adm. Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO’s military committee, said Wednesday at the Warsaw Security Forum. “And I think that is extremely important.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on NATO to conduct “preventative action” against Russian targets to prevent their use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
