Two US officials would have confirmed that senior Russian military officials discussed in mid-October how and when they could use nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The intelligence concerned US officials because the relevant discussions occurred shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeing Ukrainian forces seize territory from his troops, hinted that he might resort to nuclear weapons, said officials told CBS News on Wednesday.
Putin warned in late September that he would “certainly use all means at our disposal” to defend Russian territory.
When asked about US intelligence on Wednesday, the spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov dismissed it as “deliberate pumping” of nuclear weapons rhetoric.
“We have no intention of participating in this pumping and we consider it very, very irresponsible,” Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
In a shared statement With that outlet, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said he could not provide “any comment on the details of this report” but said the United States had been “clear from the beginning that Russia’s comments on the potential use of nuclear weapons are deeply concerning and we take them seriously.”
The conversation within the Russian military occurred when Moscow claimed, without offering any evidence, that Ukraine was preparing to use a radioactive “dirty bomb”.
Ukraine and its Western partners rejected the claim as an attempt by Russia to create a pretext to blame Ukraine for its own possible use of such a device.
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A dirty bomb is a device that uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material. These are not usually weapons stockpiled by national military forces, but are more often associated with terrorism.
Putin was not said to have been part of the talks, and Kirby and US officials who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity said there was no indication Russia was or is now making any preparations. to use a nuclear weapon.
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