War in Ukraine
'Desperate' Putin may resort to tactical nuclear weapons: CIA director
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WASHINGTON • Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns says that Russian President Vladimir Putin's "potential desperation" to extract the semblance of a victory in Ukraine could tempt him to order the use of a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon, publicly discussing for the first time a concern that has coursed through the White House during seven weeks of conflict.
Mr Burns, who served as United States ambassador to Russia and is the member of the administration who has dealt most often with Mr Putin, said on Thursday that the potential detonation of such a weapon - even as a warning shot - was a possibility that the US remained "very concerned" about.
But he quickly cautioned that so far, despite Mr Putin's frequent invocation of nuclear threats, he had seen no "practical evidence" of the kinds of military deployments or movement of weapons that would suggest such a move was imminent.
"Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they've faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons," Mr Burns said during a question-and-answer session following a speech he delivered at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
He was responding to a question from former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, who helped create the programme that brought nuclear weapons out of Ukraine and other former Soviet states 30 years ago.
Tactical weapons are sometimes called "battlefield nukes". They are smaller weapons that can be shot out of a mortar or even exploded like a mine, as opposed to "strategic" weapons that are put on intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Russia has a large arsenal of tactical weapons; the US keeps comparatively few.
Mr Burns also argued that the disclosure of Mr Putin's intentions by US intelligence officials before the outbreak of the war had made it harder for the Russian president to hide the "raw brutality" that his forces have used in Ukraine, reminiscent of the damage that Russian forces inflicted in Chechnya in the 1990s.
"I have watched over the years as Putin has stewed in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity," Mr Burns said.
NYTIMES
