“He is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological and chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming,” Biden said during a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraiser in New York City on Thursday. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use tactical nuclear weapons and not end up with armageddon.”
Biden said Putin’s rhetoric had put the world at the highest risk of nuclear destruction since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a tense period that nearly resulted in a war between the U.S. and Soviet Union after it was discovered that the Soviets had secretly deployed nuclear weapons to the island nation.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan condemned the “loose talk and the nuclear saber-rattling by Putin” during a White House press conference last week, while warning that the Biden administration would take “decisive” actions in response if Russia “went down that dark road.”
Putin warned that the Russian military would “use all the means at our disposal” in Ukraine to “protect Russia and our people” during a recent televised national address. He insisted that his suggestions of using nuclear weapons was “not a bluff.”
“We’re trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp,” Biden said on Thursday. “Where does he get off? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not, not only lose face but lose significant power in Russia?”
Concerns that Russia could be preparing to use nuclear weapons escalated this week after a viral video purporting to show a train loaded with Russian military equipment and headed towards Ukraine was posted to Twitter.
Poland-based defense analyst Konrad Muzyka suggested that the train’s payload bore markings from the Russian “directorate [that] is responsible for nuclear munitions, their storage, maintenance, transport and issuance to units.”
Political scientist and former CIA officer Matthew Kroenig previously told Newsweek that he thought it was “more likely” Putin would not use nuclear weapons but “there is a real risk he might,” given Russia’s recent setbacks in the war.
“I don’t think this is an easy decision for Putin,” Kroenig said. “I think he is on the fence. I think on one hand he is worried that using nuclear weapons could lead to a major U.S. and NATO response that he would prefer to avoid. On the other hand, he’s losing this important war right on his border.”
Kroenig said that he “would advocate a direct U.S. conventional military attack against Russia” if nuclear weapons were used, although a third world war could be triggered even without the U.S. responding by using its own nuclear weapons.
He said that he thought it was less likely that Biden would respond with a retaliatory nuclear attack, even though “people have always assumed that we would respond with nuclear weapons.”
Last week, multiple military officials told Newsweek that Biden does favor a non-nuclear approach in the event that Russia launches a nuclear strike, although some of his military advisers believe that any threats of retaliation that the president makes would not be an effective deterrent for Russia unless a pledge to use nuclear weapons is included.
During a remote address Thursday to the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that it was “hard to say whether” the threat of nuclear war had recently increased, while adding that the “world will never forgive” Russia if nuclear weapons are used.
Zelensky also urged allies of Ukraine to take “preventive action” to stop Russia from using nuclear weapons.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian government and the White House for comment.
Update 10/7, 12:00 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.
