Reveals US warning to Putin: "Knock out all targets"

 

Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Reveals US warning to Putin: "Knock out all targets"

Hans Österman

Updated 01.10 | Published 00.47

The US has warned Putin of a strong response if he uses nuclear weapons in the war.

Now previously unknown details from the diplomatic talks are revealed.

- The Americans have told the Russians that if you detonate an atomic bomb, we will knock out all your targets in Ukraine, says Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

Russian threats about nuclear weapons have rained heavily during the roughly two-year war in Ukraine, not least from the former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Vladimir Putin has also spoken out several times. As recently as March, days before the presidential election, he said in an  interview that Russia "is ready" for nuclear war.

The moves are seen primarily as propaganda, and the US has stressed outwardly that it has seen no real signs that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear bomb.

In the fall of 2022, however, the fear was real in the White House. At the time, the intelligence service CIA, according to the New York Times,New York Times, had intercepted conversations in which Russian military leaders explicitly discussed how a tactical atomic bomb could be used on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Russia began the military exercise with tactical nuclear weapons in the Southern Military District, near the border with Ukraine. Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense

Meeting between top spies

The data sent red lights flashing and triggered feverish diplomacy. The US secretary of state and defense secretary called their Russian counterparts, and Biden told Putin they needed a proxy meeting.

That led to CIA director William Burns meeting Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian SVR security service, in mid-November 2022.

According to the NY Times, Burns began the meeting by warning Russia of the consequences if nuclear weapons were deployed in Ukraine. The Russian was surprised because he thought the meeting would be about peace negotiations, but according to Burns, they parted amicably.

- Naryshkin swore that he understood and that Putin had no intention of using nuclear weapons, he told the newspaper.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. Photo: Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP

The minister reveals details

International media have previously reported that the US made it clear to Russia that a nuclear bomb in Ukraine would be answered with a powerful attack with conventional weapons.

Now Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski reveals previously unknown details from the talks.

- The Americans have told the Russians that if you detonate a nuclear bomb, even if it doesn't kill anyone, we will knock out all your targets in Ukraine with conventional weapons, we will destroy them all, he says in an interview with the British Guardian.

The Russian Ministry of Defense published images of fighter jets being readied during the exercise. Photo: AP

"Credible threat"

Radoslaw Sikorski does not believe that Putin dares to use nuclear weapons and that the warnings have deterred him.

- I think it is a credible threat. India and China have also warned Russia, he says.

Sikorski has recently, together with, among others, French President Macron, said that NATO troops in Ukraine are not out of the question.

The statements have once again caused Putin to try to scare the world with his nuclear weapons racket. As as Tuesday, Russia's Defense Ministry released images of an exercise in which nuclear bombs are loaded onto trucks and fighter jets are readied with hypersonic missiles.

To The Guardian, Sikorski says that Europe must get better at letting Putin float in uncertainty.

- Always telling about your red line invites Moscow to tailor its hostile actions and constantly adapt them to our self-imposed constraints.

 

Vladimir Putin earlier in May. Photo: Mikhail Metzel/AP