- Vladimir Putin made veiled threats to use nuclear weapons to defend parts of Ukraine.
- John Kirby said that the US was not changing its “strategic deterrent posture”.
- Kirby: Russia’s plans to take over more of Ukraine were “nothing but a trick by Vladimir Putin”.
A top White House official told the reputed media outlet that the US is taking “seriously” Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons to defend parts of Ukraine.
John Kirby said that the US was not changing its “strategic deterrent posture,” but that Mr. Putin had spoken in an irresponsible way.
On Wednesday, the leader of Russia said that his country would use all the tools it had to protect its land.
It happened as four parts of Ukraine that are partly controlled by Russian forces are getting ready to vote quickly on whether to join Russia.
Ukraine and its allies say that these votes are a sham meant to give an illegal annexation a false sense of legitimacy.
A spokesman for the National Security Council, Mr. Kirby, told the BBC, “It sets a dangerous precedent for Mr. Putin to use this kind of rhetoric in a war that he is clearly losing in Ukraine.”
“We must take these threats seriously, which is what we do… We’ve been keeping an eye on his nuclear capabilities as best we can, and I can tell you that we don’t see any reason to change our strategic deterrent posture right now.”
He said that Russia’s plans to take over more of Ukraine were “nothing but a trick by Vladimir Putin to try to get what he can’t get militarily through politics and elections.”
“But it’s not going to work,” he said. “No one’s going to recognise it. And what needs to happen is Mr Putin needs to leave Ukraine. He needs to stop this war.”
“This week, President Putin said Russia wouldn’t hesitate to use ‘all weapon systems available’ in response to a threat to its territorial integrity – a threat all the more menacing given Russia’s intention to annex large swaths of Ukraine in the days ahead…” said US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
“This from a country that in January of this year joined the other permanent members of the Security Council in signing a statement affirming that ‘nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought’.”
In a post on social media on Thursday, Dmitry Medvedev, who used to be Russia’s leader, said that “strategic nuclear weapons” would be part of Russia’s defence.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that some Security Council members were trying to put a false spin on what Moscow was doing in Ukraine. He also repeated claims that Ukrainian government forces had been unfair to ethnic Russians.
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