The Biden administration said Wednesday that it has seen no indication that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine after a media report claimed Russian officials were discussing the matter.
“We continue to monitor this as best we can, and we see no indications that Russia is making preparations for such use,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Citing unnamed US officials, The New York Times reported that senior Russian officials recently discussed when and how to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. The report isn’t confirmed, and Kirby declined to comment on the specifics.
Responding to the report, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western media is “deliberately pumping up the topic of the use of nuclear weapons.” He said the Times report was “very irresponsible.”
If the report is true, it is typical of officials in nuclear-armed states to discuss the potential use of the weapons and even rehearse dropping them as both NATO and Russia recently concluded nuclear war games.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that he has no plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “We see no need for that,” he said. “There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.”
Putin had previously warned that Russia could use all the weapons at its disposal to defend its “territorial integrity,” and other Russian officials made clear that included nuclear weapons and applied to the territories Moscow recently annexed in Ukraine.
Russian officials insist that Putin’s warning fell within Moscow’s military doctrine, which says it can use nuclear weapons in the face of an existential threat. But the warning was significant since Russia has annexed the territory it controls in Ukraine, meaning it considers Kyiv’s counteroffensives as attacks on Russian territory.
Kirby said that the US was still “concerned” with the risk of Russia using a nuclear weapon. “We have grown increasingly concerned about the potential as these months have gone on,” he said.
The US concern has not led to a push for diplomacy. Russian officials have repeatedly been stating that they’re open to negotiations. But Ukraine says its goal is to drive Russia out of all the territory it controls, including Crimea, and the US has ruled out pushing Kyiv to pursue talks with Moscow.
It can only mean that Biden himself abandoned the idea to use a dirty nuclear devise in Ukraine.
“It can only mean that Putin himself abandoned the idea to use a dirty nuclear devise in Ukraine.”
Corrected.
Well I guess it was time for some good news for once
Kirby said that the US was still “concerned” with the risk of Russia using a nuclear weapon. “We have grown increasingly concerned about the potential as these months have gone on,” he said.
But never allow good news out without the added caveats to keep the fear instilled.
“US Sees No Indication Russia Is Preparing to Use Nuclear Weapon” It is going to be a surprise?
“Citing unnamed US officials, The New York Times reported that senior Russian officials recently discussed when and how to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. The report isn’t confirmed, and Kirby declined to comment on the specifics.”
The stenographers print whatever they are told. But you’d think that with humankind in the balance, they’d refuse to print anything from “unnamed US officials”.
Well . . . you’d think they should refrain from printing reckless rumors like that, but I haven’t thought they would refrain for a very long time.
Are there any indications the US/NATO/the West is preparing to use nukes?
See Sergei Shoigu’s recent outreach to his counterparts in the US, UK, and France. There were apparently serious indications that work on a dirty bomb by the Ukranians and their British handlers had commenced.
A dirty bomb isn’t some piece of high-tech wizardry that requires foreign “handlers” and advanced physics. They have plenty of explosives, and probably plenty of nuclear medicine waste. That plus a fuse/detonator and it’s done.
Without Zaporizhzhia and Sevastopol, Ukraine has three operating nuclear power plants, each with multiple reactors, and research reactors in Kiev and Kharkov. If its forces want to make dirty bombs, they are, as our Brit friends say, spoilt for choice.
But it would be an incredibly-stupid thing to do.
I originally thought a dirty bomb made no sense, especially with the Ukranians keen on advancing. But then I remembered Crimea; a dirty bomb used as an area denial weapon could severely hamper traffic down the land corridor to Crimea, forcing the Russians to rely on the Kerch bridge which of course suffered its own attack.
Let’s hope no one is that stupid though.
It would be pretty easy to trace the fissionable material from a dirty bomb to its source. The whole world would soon know who did it. If it was the Ukrainians, support would vanish immediately.
Of course, some of the Banderists are both crazy and stupid . . . Nah, probably not that stupid.
I am thinking more that the mainstream media will declare that the material has been traced to Russia, and anyone who says differently is a dangerous conspiracy theorist or Putin puppet. And they will probably also say that they disagree with science for good measure.
There is no military or political advantage to a dirty bomb. Ukraine is not going to build one or use one.
We agree.
Nobody needs a nuclear power plant to make a dirty bomb.
All they need is the ability to procure (including by stealing) medical waste from a hospital with a nuclear medicine facility.
About a third of the world’s medical isotopes are produced at a single reactor in the Netherlands. Most of the other places that produce them probably export them too.
So a dirty bomb goes off in, say, Kherson. The isotopes are possibly mixed in reactor origin, but even if they all came from, say, the Argus-M reactor in Sarov (Russia) or at the KIPT neutron source facility in Ukraine, that doesn’t tell us the Russians or Ukrainians were the ones who built or detonated the bomb, because those isotopes are in hospital waste elsewhere.
You’re replying to a claim I didn’t make, Thomas.
I know a dirty bomb could be made with radioactive medical waste. I also know that the effects of such a weapon would pale in comparison to one made with, e.g., spent fuel rods, which contain such goodies as various isotopes of plutonium.
In most of the civilized world, radioactive material in medical devices and diagnostic materials is tracked and audited from manufacture to disposal. Betting on getting away with using diverted material in a dirty bomb would be a bad bet, considering the world reaction if the identities of the culprits were even strongly suspected.
It’s not gonna happen. There’s no significant benefit and enormous downside risk.
US Sees Indication US Is Preparing to Use Nuclear Weapon
https://www.indianpunchline.com/a-biden-putin-meeting-in-bali-cannot-be-ruled-out/
A Biden-Putin meeting in Bali cannot be ruled out.
It’s difficult to know whether a potential Republican election slaughter next week may have a subtle effect on whether these talk are held.
The war in Ukraine may be the Democrats undoing. Who could have conceived that idea in early February 2022?