CIA Director William Burns said Thursday that the United States should not dismiss the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in its war with Ukraine, Newsmax reports.
Following a speech at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Burns said, “Given the potential desperation of [Russian] President [Vladimir] 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.”
Burns noted the U.S. has not seen “practical evidence” of such escalation.
“While we’ve seen some rhetorical posturing on the part of the Kremlin about moving to higher nuclear alert levels, so far we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or military dispositions that would reinforce that concern,” said Burns, the CIA director since March 2021. But we watch for that very intently. It’s one of our most important responsibilities at [the] CIA.”
{Matzav.com}
CIA Director: Unwise to Discount Possibility of Russia Using Its [the CIA’s] Nukes