(Washington) Military setbacks in Ukraine could prompt Russian President Vladimir Putin to resort to a tactical or low-power nuclear weapon in that country, CIA chief William Burns said Thursday.
Posted at 8:35 p.m.
“Given that President Putin and the Russian leadership may sink into despair, given the setbacks they have suffered so far from a military point of view, none of us can take the threat posed by the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or low-power nuclear weapons,” Burns said during a speech in Atlanta.
Photo Brynn Anderson, Associated Press
CIA Director William Burns
The Kremlin has spoken of putting its nuclear forces on alert “but we haven’t really seen any concrete signs such as deployments or military measures that could aggravate our concerns”, added the head of the main American intelligence agency, speaking to students at Georgia Tech University.
“Obviously we are very worried. I know that President (Joe) Biden is deeply concerned about the risk of World War III and is doing everything to avoid getting to the point where nuclear conflict becomes possible,” he added.
Russia has many tactical nuclear weapons, less powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, in accordance with its “escalation-de-escalation” doctrine which would consist in first using a low-powered nuclear weapon to regain the advantage. in the event of a conventional conflict with the West.
But this assumption implies that “NATO is intervening militarily on the ground in Ukraine during this conflict, and that is not something, as the president has made clear, that is planned,” he said. He underlines.
Recalling having been United States Ambassador to Moscow, Mr. Burns did not have words harsh enough for a “revengeful”, “stubborn” Vladimir Putin, who over the years has sunk into an “explosive mixture of grievances, of ambition and insecurity”.
“Every day, Putin demonstrates that a declining power can be as destabilizing as a rising power,” he added.