U.S. President Joe Biden warned of a high threat of atomic war, telling a group of Democratic supporters on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not joking” about threats to use nuclear weapons.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden claimed.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a major confrontation in 1962 while John F. Kennedy was president that brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba.
“We are trying to figure out: What is Putin’s off-ramp?” Biden said. “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?”
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated in late September that any nuclear weapon use would have “catastrophic consequences” for Russia, adding that the U.S. had “spelled out” in private communications with Moscow how the U.S. and the world react.
The president’s statements, which were delivered at a Democratic fundraiser rather than in a more formal setting, came as analysts in Washington debated whether Putin would employ tactical nuclear weapons in response to his mounting military losses in Ukraine.
In a short national address last month, Putin accused the West and its allies of “nuclear blackmail,” The Dallas Express reported.
After referencing statements by some unnamed “high-ranking NATO representatives” about using nuclear weapons against Russia, Putin added, “I would like to remind those who make such statements about Russia that our country has more modern and separate destructive weapons than NATO nations. We will use all available means to protect Russia and our people.”
Newsweek reported that a Russian news agency called the comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis “nonsense” and suggested that the current political climate is even worse.
After citing a Newsweek article that mentioned the assassination of Putin as a possible non-nuclear option allegedly considered by the U.S. Department of Defense, RIA Novosti columnist Victoria Nikiforova wrote that “any comparisons with the Caribbean crisis seem to be just nonsense. It looks like we have long since left this crisis behind us.”
“Never during the Cold War did the Americans allow themselves to be so brazen about plotting to assassinate the leader of the Soviet Union,” he suggested.
Despite Biden’s comparison, the New York Times quoted unnamed American officials who allegedly said they do not believe this is as dangerous as that crisis. They believe Putin’s chances of using an atomic weapon remain slim.
Earlier this week, Polish President Andrzej Duda claimed that he approached the U.S. government and asked it to share its nuclear weapons with the East-European country, which borders the Russian Federation, The Dallas Express reported. Tensions between Poland and Russia have increased since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
“We have spoken with American leaders about whether such a possibility is being considered by the U.S. The issue is open,” Duda told the Polish magazine Gazeta Polska.
The White House denied knowledge of any such request. “We are not aware of this issue being raised and would refer you to the Polish government,” a U.S. official said, The Guardian reported.
If the U.S. provided nuclear weapons to Poland, it could be viewed as a violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act and the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
When Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin was asked about Biden’s remarks while at the EU summit in Prague on Friday, she suggested, “The way out of this conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine. That is the way out of the conflict. The exit from the conflict is when Russia leaves the territory of Ukraine.”
