US Secretary Says Putin Has Been Warned Not To Use Nuclear Weapons For War In Ukraine

Illustration of President Putin accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Military Chief of Staff General Valery Gerasimov while observing Russian military exercises. (Wikimedia Commons/Kremlin.ru/Relus)

JAKARTA - The United States has warned Russia if it uses nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine. There are consequences that must be paid dearly.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed the warning had been conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"We have also communicated directly and very clearly to Russia, President Putin about the consequences," the top US diplomat said at a Bloomberg event as quoted by CNN, Friday, October 28.

There was no further explanation, however, of how it was communicated to Putin or by whom. While the Kremlin itself said, US officials did not communicate directly with him.

Biden administration officials did say Moscow had been warned at the highest level about the consequences of using nuclear weapons in war. But what Blinken said was the first explicit mention that the message had reached Putin himself.

Blinken denounced Russia's latest claim that Ukraine is considering the use of a "dirty bomb" as "another fabrication and something that is also the culmination of irresponsibility stemming from nuclear power."

He said the United States had been in direct communication with Russia "about trying to use these false accusations as a pretext for any kind of escalation."

"The reason this particular accusation worries us is that Russia has a track record of projecting, i.e. accusing others of doing something they themselves have done or are thinking of doing," Blinken said.

Blinken reiterated that the US is tracking the Kremlin's nuclear weapons "very carefully," but has not "seen any reason to change our nuclear posture."

But Russia's ambassador to the UK Andrey Kevin told CNN his country would not use nuclear weapons in its war against Ukraine.

"Russia will not use nukes. That's impossible," Kevin told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.