In a formal statement, the White House refuted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings of nuclear war, which he made last Wednesday in a speech to the Russian people. Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor for the United States, claimed on Sunday that the White House has already informed the Kremlin of the threats.
According to the author of the website “19fortyfive,” Jack Buckby stated Sullivan said in an interview for CBS’s Face the Nation that “we have communicated directly, privately, and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the U.S. and our allies will respond decisively, and that we have been clear and specific about what that will entail.”
Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons during the conflict, and Sullivan acknowledged that this, as well as the recent escalation, which included a pledge to send an additional 300,000 troops to eastern Ukraine, was too far. Sullivan claimed that throughout the battle, Putin had been “waving around the nuclear card” and that the White House had been compelled to take the most recent threats, as well as the possibility of using nuclear weapons for the first time since World War II, “deadly serious.”
In response to Sullivan’s allegations, which included his warning to hold Russia accountable for “horrific” and “catastrophic” outcomes, the Kremlin asserted that Russian officials were in “sporadic” touch with Washington, D.C. regarding the nuclear threat.
During a speech last week at the UN headquarters in New York City, President Joe Biden also denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s nuclear war threats.
Let’s be clear, Biden said: “A permanent member of the UN Security Council invaded its neighbor and tried to wipe the sovereign state off the map.” No principle of the United Nations charter has been flagrantly violated by Russia more so than the prohibition against nations occupying a neighboring country’s territory by force.
Keep the “Nuclear Umbrella” in Place
In his remarks over the weekend, Sullivan added that the United States will react to Russia’s efforts to expand its nuclear arsenal as well as the possibility of nuclear attacks.
An area that a nuclear-armed state would protect with nuclear weapons in the case of a strike is referred to as a “nuclear umbrella.” It is feared in Washington, D.C., that Russia would utilize the results of the current elections in the Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson to enlarge its nuclear sphere of influence and annex Ukrainian territory.
The information effectively puts NATO and Russia in a deadlock. NATO will still recognize Ukrainian territory even though the Kremlin may view it as Russian. Russia may view the West’s continued assistance to Ukraine in its conflict with Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine as an escalation and an existential danger to the Russian Federation. If that is the case, it may lead Russia to attack NATO in order to defend “Russian” territory in eastern Ukraine.
