In the fall of 2022, the White House desperately tried to refuse the Kremlin this.
US President Joe Biden
Washington Post editor Bob Woodward claimed in his new book, “War,” that in early fall 2022, American intelligence warned the White House of the extremely high risk of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in a war against Ukraine.
According to CNN, the probability of this step at one point reached 50%. Then, according to Woodward, US President Joe Biden ordered his advisers to “contact the Russians through all channels and tell them what we will do in response.” This included “revising all the restrictions on the war in Ukraine and isolating Russia on the world stage to a level that they will not like.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had two direct phone calls with Sergei Shoigu about nuclear weapons. In the first, he relayed Biden's words, to which Putin's ally said that he “doesn't like being threatened.” The Pentagon chief recalled that he leads “the strongest army in the history of the world, so he doesn't make threats.”
During the second call, the Russians tried to lie to Washington about a “dirty bomb” that the Ukrainians were allegedly developing. Austin resolutely rejected these fabrications and told Shoigu “Don't do it,” in response to the “I understand.”
The WP editor's book contains many other interesting episodes, the veracity of which is not confirmed in the White House. In particular, Biden accused Barack Obama of not taking Putin seriously enough after the annexation of Crimea, and Kamala Harris advised Volodymyr Zelensky on the eve of the invasion to “think about a successor in case he is captured or killed.”
- Another episode from the book is the story of how Donald Trump gave Putin tests for coronavirus, which were rare at that time, in 2020.