The director of the CIA, William Burns, assured on Thursday (04.14.2022) that the United States should not “take lightly” the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, given the complications it has encountered in the 50 days of its military offensive in the country.
“Given the potential desperation of (Russian) President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks they have encountered militarily, no one can take lightly the threat that tactical nuclear weapons may be resorted to or low-power,” Burns said after a speech at a Georgia state university in the United States.
The head of the CIA pointed out, however, that they have not seen evidence that Russia is preparing to use this type of missile.
“Although we have seen rhetorical positions on the part of the Kremlin around raising its nuclear alert level, we have not seen much tangible evidence of these types of deployments … to support these concerns,” he added.
Burns was thus referring to some previous statements by Vladimir Putin, in which he assured that he was going to put his nuclear weapons system on alert. This same Thursday, Russia warned that it could transfer nuclear weapons to the Baltic Sea region if Finland and Sweden joined NATO.
The United States has warned that Russia could use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, but these public comments by Burns are the most explicit to date by the US on the Kremlin’s use of nuclear weapons in its invasion of Ukraine.
Burns also claimed that President Joe Biden is trying to prevent a third world war from breaking out, which has led Washington to avoid closing Ukrainian airspace or rejecting Poland’s plans to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine.
However, on Wednesday Biden announced a military aid package to Ukraine valued at 800 million dollars, which includes for the first time, since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, 18 155-millimeter Howitzers with 40,000 ammunition; To which are added 10 AN/TPQ-36 type anti-artillery radars and two AN/MPQ-54 air surveillance radars.
gs (efe, afp, Archyde.com)