On Thursday, the Kremlin steadfastly declined to provide any information regarding a warning the CIA director gave to Moscow this week over the repercussions of any Russian nuclear assault on Ukraine.
According to a White House official, William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, cautioned Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence organization, of the repercussions of any use of nuclear weapons.
It was the first high-level, face-to-face communication between the United States and Russia since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
When asked about the meeting, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to reporters, “We are not revealing anything about the content of the conversations.”
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, merely mentioned that Washington had sought the meeting and that “issues discussed there were of a sensitive kind.” After being contacted for comment, the SVR did not react.
Burns met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv after the summit. Before the two men met in the midst of Russian missile attacks, Zelenskiy claimed that the CIA director had spent some time in a bomb shelter.
President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, a former American ambassador to Russia, to Moscow in November 2021 to warn Putin about his army buildup near Ukraine, which came before the Russian president’s invasion four months later.
Since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the invasion has brought Moscow and the West to their most heated standoff.
Nuclear challenge.
Concerns about a nuclear exchange have centered on how Putin would respond in the event that Russian forces in Ukraine suffered a catastrophic defeat as well as how Russia may protect the Ukrainian land it claims to have annexed.
Putin has stated that if attacked, Russia will defend its country with all tools at its disposal, including nuclear weapons.
Russian officials counter that the West has frequently misconstrued Kremlin pronouncements and that its nuclear doctrine makes it very clear under what conditions it may use such weapons.
When asked whether or not using nuclear weapons was a possibility for Russia and whether it had been discussed, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded on Thursday that even the way such questions were phrased was wrong.
If you’ve noticed, no one from the Russian side is talking about or has talked about this subject, according to Peskov.
He attributed the escalation of tensions in a totally unacceptable, impermissible, and potentially dangerous sphere to discussions of the nuclear issue in European capitals.
With a combined 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads—enough to wipe out the planet numerous times—Russia and the United States are by far the two nuclear superpowers.
