Joe Biden
US President Joe Biden warned on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons is real, just days after criticizing Russia’s deployment of such weapons in Belarus.
Biden termed Putin’s statement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus absolutely irresponsible on Saturday.
“When I came out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado River drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy”, Biden told a group of donors in California on Monday.
“They looked at me as if I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real”, Mr. Biden continued.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced last week that his country has begun receiving Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he claims are three times more destructive than the atomic bombs detonated on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
This is Russia’s first move of such warheads – shorter-range, less powerful nuclear weapons capable of being employed on the battlefield – outside of Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The United States stated that it has no intention of changing its position on strategic nuclear weapons in response to the deployment and that it has seen no indications that Russia is planning to use a nuclear weapon.
In May, Russia dismissed Biden’s criticism of its plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, claiming the U.S. had been deploying such weapons in Europe for decades.
The Russian deployment is being closely monitored by the United States and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict.
