Biden: The world is at risk of experiencing Armageddon.
White House chief accuses Russia of nuclear extermination.
247 - Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine has brought the world closer to "Armageddon" than at any other time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the Cold War, U.S. President Joe Biden said, according to Reuters.
Biden said the prospect of defeat could leave Putin desperate enough to use nuclear weapons, the greatest risk since US President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev clashed over missiles in Cuba in 1962.
"We haven't faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis," Biden said in New York. "For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of nuclear weapons, if things continue as they have been."
Putin "wasn't joking when he spoke about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his armed forces are, one could argue, significantly underperforming," Biden said.
The concern so far has been with the prospect of Russia deploying a so-called "tactical" nuclear weapon – a short-range device for battlefield use – rather than the "strategic" long-range missile weapons that Washington and Moscow have stockpiled since the Cold War.
But Biden suggested it made little difference: "I don't think there's a capability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon."
Putin warned that he would use all necessary means, including Russia's nuclear arsenal, to protect Russian soil, which he now says includes four Ukrainian regions that he declared annexed last week.
In comments to Australia's Lowy Institute, Zelenskiy said that NATO should launch preemptive strikes against Russia to prevent the use of nuclear weapons.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced these comments as "a call to start yet another world war with unpredictable and monstrous consequences." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Zelensky's comments demonstrated why Russia was right to launch its operation.