President Joe Biden has warned that the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s use of tactical nuclear weapons is “real”.
The comments made on Monday came as Ukraine continued its counter-offensive to retake occupied territories and just days after the Kremlin began deploying weapons in Belarus.
Biden on Saturday condemned Putin’s move to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in his close neighbor and ally as “completely irresponsible” and on Monday appeared to reiterate his concerns about Putin’s threats.
“When I was out here about two years ago and said I was worried the Colorado River was going to dry up, everyone looked at me like I was crazy,” Biden told a group of donors in California on Monday, Portal reported.
“They looked at me like they did when I said I was worried that Putin might use tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real,” Biden said, according to the news outlet.
Putin said on Friday that the first tactical nuclear weapons were stationed in Belarus and that the rest of the shipment would be delivered before the end of the year.
The Russian leader first announced the move in March, stoking fears of a renewed nuclear escalation months after fears he might resort to arms first peaked. It is Moscow’s first transfer of such weapons outside the country’s borders since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Washington’s official position on this issue is consistent: there is no reason to change its own nuclear stance, and there are no signs that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons.
Since the start of his invasion of Ukraine, Putin has repeatedly threatened to unleash the country’s powerful nuclear arsenal should Russia’s sovereignty or territorial integrity be threatened. Kremlin hawks and propagandists regularly threaten to send nuclear missiles into Western capitals, especially as Russia’s campaign yielded no battlefield victories.
But despite publicly signaling several red lines — most notably in the occupied Crimea — Moscow has largely downplayed a wave of attacks on its territory it blamed on Kiev, which has helped fuel fears of a nuclear conflict in recent months to disperse.
The story goes on
On Tuesday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu warned that Ukraine plans to attack Russia and Crimea with long-range weapons supplied by the West. The use of such weapons outside of Ukraine, Shoigu said, would mean “full involvement of the United States and Britain in the conflict” and “immediate attacks on decision-making centers on Ukraine’s territory.”
Biden warns Putin of real nuclear threat (Libkos/AP)
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, whose regime was backed by Putin after pro-democracy protests in 2020, said last week Moscow had equipped his country with nuclear weapons three times more powerful than those used to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 .
Belarus is not officially a war party in Ukraine, although Moscow used its territory to launch the full-scale invasion last year. It has no nuclear weapons of its own, having transferred inherited Soviet-era stocks to Russia in the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continued the long-awaited counteroffensive it launched earlier this month to retake occupied territories.
Kiev said on Monday that its forces had liberated eight settlements with an advance on the southeastern war front, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily recorded address that his forces were advancing in some areas and defending their positions in others.
“We have no lost positions. Only the liberated,” Zelenskyy said. “They only have casualties.”
However, his defense minister, Hanna Maliar, warned in a Telegram post late Monday that it was “rather difficult” for Ukrainian troops to advance “because the enemy used all their forces to stop the offensive.”
“We have to be prepared that it will be a tough duel,” said Maliar.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com