Biden: Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ risk highest since ’62 crisis

President Joe Biden said Thursday that the hazard of atomic "Armageddon" is astatine the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, arsenic Russian officials talk of the anticipation of utilizing tactical atomic weapons aft suffering monolithic setbacks successful the eight-month penetration of Ukraine.

Speaking astatine a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was "a feline I cognize reasonably well" and the Russian person was "not joking erstwhile helium talks astir the usage of tactical atomic weapons oregon biologic oregon chemic weapons."

Biden added, "We person not faced the imaginable of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis." He suggested the menace from Putin is existent "because his subject is — you mightiness accidental — importantly underperforming."

U.S. officials for months person warned of the imaginable that Russia could usage weapons of wide demolition successful Ukraine arsenic it has faced a bid of strategical setbacks connected the battlefield, though Biden's remarks marked the starkest warnings yet issued by the U.S. authorities astir the atomic stakes.

It was not instantly wide whether Biden was referring to immoderate caller appraisal of Russian intentions. As precocious arsenic this week, though, U.S. officials person said they person seen nary alteration to Russia's atomic forces that would necessitate a alteration successful the alert posture of U.S. atomic forces.

"We person not seen immoderate crushed to set our ain strategical atomic posture, nor bash we person denotation that Russia is preparing to imminently usage atomic weapons," White House property caput Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.

The 13-day showdown successful 1962 that followed the U.S. find of the Soviet Union's concealed deployment of atomic weapons to Cuba is regarded by experts arsenic the closest the satellite has ever travel to atomic annihilation. The situation during President John F. Kennedy's medication sparked a renewed absorption connected arms power connected some sides of the Iron Curtain.

Biden besides challenged Russian atomic doctrine, informing that the usage of a lower-yield tactical limb could rapidly spiral retired of power into planetary destruction.

"I don't deliberation determination is immoderate specified a happening arsenic the quality to easy usage a tactical atomic limb and not extremity up with Armageddon," Biden said.

"This is thing that we are attuned to, taking precise seriously, and communicating straight with Russia about, including the benignant of decisive responses the United States would person if they went down that acheronian road," Sullivan said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier Thursday that Putin understood that the "world volition ne'er forgive" a Russian atomic strike.

"He understands that aft the usage of atomic weapons helium would beryllium incapable immoderate much to preserve, truthful to speak, his life, and I'm assured of that," Zelenskyy said.

Biden's comments came during a backstage fundraiser for Democratic Senate candidates astatine the Manhattan location of James and Kathryn Murdoch. He tends to beryllium much unguarded — often speaking with conscionable unsmooth notes — successful specified settings, which are unfastened lone to a fistful of reporters without cameras oregon signaling devices.