The American president believes that his Russian counterpart makes the world run a risk of “apocalypse” for the first time since the Cuba missile crisis which had taken place in the middle of the cold war.
Le Monde with AP and AFP
American president Joe Biden does not hide that threats of use of nuclear weapons, uttered by his Russian counterpart, seem very real to him.
Vladimir Putin, “a guy I know quite well,” said Joe Biden, Thursday, October 6, “does not like it when he talks about a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, Because his army, one could say, is very ineffective “in the conflict in Ukraine.
Speaking during a fundraising as part of the Democratic senatorial campaign in New York, the American president compared the current context to one of the most threatening periods of after -gue.
“We have not been faced with the prospect of an apocalypse from Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” he said. From October 14 to 28, 1962, the missile crisis installed in Cuba by the Soviet Union and spotted by the United States had made the planet tremble, letting fear a nuclear war.
“There is (…) a direct threat of use of nuclear weapons if things continue to follow the path they are currently taking,” said Joe Biden.
“Understand what is Putin’s exit door “
Faced with tenacious Ukrainian resistance, fueled by Western military aid, Vladimir Putin made an allusion to the atomic bomb in a televised speech on September 21. He said he was ready to use “all means” in his arsenal in front of the West, which he had accused of wanting to “destroy” Russia. “It’s not bluff,” he said.
According to experts, such attacks would probably use tactical nuclear weapons – smaller explosive charge than a strategic nuclear weapon. But Joe Biden warned that even a tactical nuclear shot could trigger a wider conflagration.
I don’t think that a tactical nuclear weapon can easily be easily able to cause the apocalypse.
It is not established that Joe Biden refers to a new Washington assessment of Russian intentions. “We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, and we have no indication that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons imminently,” said the press secretary of the press attaché on Tuesday The White House, Karine Jean-Pierre.
The national security advisor Jake Sullivan said last week that the United States had been “clear” with Russia on the “consequences” of the use of ‘A nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
“We are trying to understand what is Putin’s exit door,” said Joe Biden on Thursday. “How can he get out of it? How can he position himself so as to lose face, nor lose a significant portion of his power in Russia?”