Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nukes in Ukraine

Former CIA director and retired US army general David Petraeus has said that the United States would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine and sink its Black Sea fleet if it carried out a nuclear attack in the country, while Moscow has advised Washington of its nuclear “red line”.

Petraeus said in an interview that he had not spoken to US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to such an attack in Ukraine by Russia, according to The Guardian.

“Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a NATO – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea,” he told ABC News.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last month hinted at being willing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The Russian leader in a nationwide address called up to 300,000 reservists to aid Russia and threatened to use the country’s nuclear weapons in face of the US-led aggression against his country.  

“This is not a bluff,” Putin said. “And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them.”

Petraeus said the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine would not trigger NATO’s Article 5, which calls for the collective defense of NATO because Ukraine is not part of NATO.

Petraeus acknowledged that the likelihood that radiation would extend to NATO countries under the Article 5 umbrella could perhaps be construed as an attack on a NATO member.

“Perhaps you can make that case,” he said. “The other case is that this is so horrific that there has to be a response – it cannot go unanswered.”

Yet, Petraeus added, “You don’t want to, again, get into a nuclear escalation here. But you have to show that this cannot be accepted in any way.”

Petraeus claimed that Ukrainian is making gains in the east of the country and Putting is becoming “desperate.”

“The battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible,” he said. “No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it; no amount of annexation; no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get him out of this particular situation.”

Meanwhile, New York-based journalist Don DeBar said in an interview with Press TV on Monday that “this is a bunch of nonsense, and highly disingenuous.”

“Russia is not about to collapse in Ukraine, whatsoever. The US is trying to create a narrative, based on a couple of tactical retreats, that scares the life out of me, because it sounds like they intend to set off a small nuclear device in Ukraine, blame it on Moscow and use it as an excuse to make complete war on Russia,” he stated.

“The American public has already been prepared for this by the media, for sure. This projection by the US is preparing the rest of the world for it, too,” he noted.

“I think the morons in Washington and the psychos in Langley (the CIA headquarters) actually believe that if they do this, Russia will shy away from retaliating and just collapse like it did in 1991. I do not believe that this is a viable path for the Russian government, given the experience of the people in Russia during the 1990s, which is fresh in their memory,” he stated.

US President Joe Biden warned Putin against thoughts of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, adding that it would “change the face of war unlike anything since WWII.”

Biden said Moscow would become a global pariah if it uses weapons of mass destruction on the former Soviet state.

In response to Biden's warning, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov gave reporters this short answer, "Read the doctrine. Everything is written there," RIA Novosti reported.

The Russian nuclear doctrine allows the country to use nukes in two conditions. First, when "Russia  or its ally [is under attack] with the use of mass destruction weapons," and second, "when the very existence of the state is under threat."

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