US President Joe Biden has once again warned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia against using unconventional or nuclear weapons to try to turn the tide of the war in Moscow’s favour, saying that such an action would “change the face of war unlike anything since World War II”.
Speaking in an interview with the CBS News programme 60 Minutes that is scheduled to air on Sunday, Biden said that the US’s response would be “consequential”, though he declined to go into detail.
“You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course I’m not going to tell you. It’ll be consequential,” Biden said, according to an excerpt from the interview. “They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.”
His warning was in response to an interviewer’s question, not in light of any newly released intelligence suggesting that the threat had changed.
The comments came as Russian forces have been left reeling from retreats on the battlefield in Ukraine and as Putin faces intensifying questions back home over how he has conducted the war.
The leaders of Putin’s two most consequential strategic partners, India and China, both raised concerns about the war this week, puncturing the Kremlin’s message that Russia was far from isolated as a result of the war.
Some western officials have expressed concern that the more cornered Putin feels, the greater the chance that he might turn to unconventional weapons like a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, which can be fired at relatively short distances, as opposed to “strategic” nuclear weapons that can be launched over much longer distances.
In April, the CIA director had warned about how Putin could turn to such weapons in “desperation”.
The director, William J. Burns, said it was a possibility that the US remained “very concerned” about, although he said that, at that stage of the war, Washington had seen no “practical evidence” of the kinds of military deployments or movement of weapons to suggest that such a move was imminent.
Biden has repeatedly said the use of such weapons would have serious consequences.
Despite the setbacks and the loss of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, Putin has showed no signs of changing course. On Friday, he threatened to escalate his forces’ attacks.
In a news conference in Uzbekistan at the conclusion of a regional summit, Putin claimed that Ukraine was trying to carry out “terrorist acts” inside Russia and “to damage our civilian infrastructure”.
Ukraine has occasionally hit fuel and military targets in Russia’s border region but has denied targeting civilian infrastructure, and Putin offered no evidence to back up his assertion.
“We are, indeed, responding rather restrainedly, but that’s for the time being,” Putin said. “The Russian armed forces delivered a couple of sensitive blows there. Well, what about that? We will assume that these are warning strikes. If the situation continues to develop in this way, the answer will be more serious.”
New York Times News Service
