No new intelligence behind Biden Armageddon comment -White House

Reuters

Published Oct 07, 2022 12:53PM ET

Updated Oct 07, 2022 02:01PM ET

By Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose

(Reuters) -The United States has no new intelligence on Russia's nuclear threats, the White House said Friday, after President Joe Biden referenced a nuclear "Armageddon" on Thursday.

The U.S. also does not have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons, and sees no reason to change its current nuclear posture, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

"He was reinforcing what we have been saying, which is how seriously we take these threats about nuclear weapons," Jean-Pierre said. "We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, nor do we have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons."

On Thursday, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine has brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in response to Biden's comments, said, "We must speak with prudence."

Biden on Thursday also said he was keeping an eye on Putin and how he might react as Ukraine's military makes gains against Russian invaders.

"For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they'd been going," Biden told Democratic donors in New York.

In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States under President John Kennedy and the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev came close to the use of nuclear weapons over the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

"If the Cuban Missile Crisis has taught us anything, it is the value of reducing nuclear risk and not brandishing it," Jean-Pierre said Friday.

Biden also told attendees that he knows Putin "fairly well" and said the Russian president was "not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons."