Ukraine war: Biden says nuclear risk highest since 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

BBC News:

The risk of a nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, US President Joe Biden has said.

Mr Biden said Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was “not joking” when he spoke of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering setbacks in Ukraine.

The US was “trying to figure out” Mr Putin’s way out of the war, he added.

The US and the EU have previously said Mr Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling should be taken seriously.

However, the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last week said that, despite Moscow’s nuclear hints, the US had seen no signs that Russia was imminently preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

• How many nuclear weapons does Russia have?

Ukraine has been retaking territory occupied by Russia, including in the four regions Russia illegally annexed recently.

For several months US officials have been warning that Russia could resort to the use of weapons of mass destruction, if it suffers setbacks on the battlefield.

President Biden said the Russian leader had not been “joking” when he talked about using tactical nuclear, biological or chemical weapons – “because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming”.

“For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they’d been going,” Mr Biden told fellow Democrats.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”