In late 2022, the White House was so concerned that Russia might launch a nuclear strike against Ukraine that US President Joe Biden’s administration created several task forces to develop a response plan.
Source: The New York Times (NYT), citing anonymous US officials.
Otherwise, Biden’s administration worried, the US would risk emboldening not only Russian President Vladimir Putin, but also every other authoritarian leader with a nuclear arsenal, large or small, the NYT reported.
"Some believed that the public warnings Russia was making that Ukraine was preparing to use a giant ‘dirty bomb,’ a weapon that spews radiological waste, was a pretext for a pre-emptive nuclear strike," the NYT reported.
It is unclear how specific Burns was about the nature of the US response, but Burns said that "Naryshkin swore that he understood and that Putin did not intend to use a nuclear weapon.".
On 9 March, CNN reported that the US began "preparing rigorously" in late 2022 for a possible Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine.
The US State Department criticised Putin’s claims about the threat of a nuclear war, saying that the US currently sees no threat of Moscow using nuclear weapons. »
