US Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday that for the first time since the Cold War, the world is in danger of nuclear “Armageddon” and that he is attempting to create an “exit ramp” for Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Ukraine war.
At a Democratic party fundraiser in New York, Biden said that since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, “we have not faced the danger of Armageddon.”
Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons to continue his invasion of Ukraine is “not kidding,” according to Biden.
At a party supporter event held in the Manhattan home of James Murdoch, the son of media magnate Rupert Murdoch, Biden delivered some unusually forceful remarks about the dangers of Putin’s nuclear threats.
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About the nuclear standoff that resulted from the Soviet Union stationing missiles in Cuba, which was within easy striking distance of the United States, Biden stated that if events continue on their current course, “we have a direct threat from the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since the Cuban missile crisis.”
Putin has threatened to use nuclear weapons if he thinks he has exhausted all other options in his attempt to annex large portions of Ukrainian land in the face of persistent opposition from Kyiv, which has the support of the West.
Experts predict that these would most likely be tactical, small-scale attacks. However, Biden cautioned that a targeted attack would still be dangerous to ignite a more considerable firestorm.
We have a man here that I know very well,” Biden added. Because his military is, you may say, badly underperforming, Putin is “not kidding when he warns of the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”
According to Biden, the capacity to quickly (use) a tactical nuclear bomb without causing Armageddon, “I don’t believe there’s such such thing,” he said.
Biden added, “I’m trying to find out what is Putin’s off-ramp. “Where does he locate an exit? Where does he find that he won’t lose not only the face but also a significant amount of influence inside Russia?”