U.S. President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor reportedly held talks with Russian officials to warn them against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
According to The Wall Street Journal, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has met with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s security council, in recent months.
The report added that the U.S. intends to avoid further conflict between Russia and Ukraine to the point that Putin deploys part of its nuclear arsenal.
The threat of nuclear war has risen dramatically after Putin illegally annexed four Ukrainian regions and reiterated his threats to use nuclear weapons in September.
“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” Putin said last month.
The U.N. General Assembly has since voted to condemn Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of the four Ukrainian regions and demand its immediate reversal. The vote was 143-5, with 35 abstentions.
The vote to condemn Russia is a sign of strong global opposition to the eight-month war and Moscow’s attempt to grab Ukraine’s territory.
During an interview on CNN last month, Biden said that he believed Putin was a “rational actor” who badly misjudged his ability to invade Ukraine and suppress its people.
“I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” Biden told Jake Tapper. “You listen to what he says. If you listen to the speech he made after when that decision was being made, he talked about the whole idea of – he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers. I mean, it’s just I just think it’s irrational.”
Biden, who previously warned that the risk of “nuclear Armageddon” was at its highest level in 60 years, added that Putin wrongly believed Ukrainians would submit to a Russian invasion.
“I think the speech, his objectives were not rational. I think he thought, Jake, I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated,” he said.
