Biden Gives Warning: “Chance of Nuclear Armageddon is close, Putin is not joking around”

President Joe Biden sent out a bleak warning about Vladimir Putin on Thursday, telling a crowd at a New York City fundraiser that the Russian president is not joking when it comes to veiled threats about using nuclear weapons. 

Biden said, “The world is as close to nuclear Armageddon as it has been in decades. First time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” Biden, 79, told the crowd at the event. “I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp?”

Biden continued, “Where does Putin find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?”

Biden also touched on the fact that America has not faced the prospect so severe since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“Putin is not playing around when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming,” Biden warned.

Biden’s comments go several steps beyond what State Department officials have said of Putin’s nuclear threats, which have ramped up as Russia has suffered apparent shortcomings on the battlefield in its invasion of Ukraine.

Last month, Putin called for a partial mobilization of Russian citizens amid the ongoing invasion, saying in a speech, “”When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “The U.S. has been in contact with Russia concerning the loose talk of using nuclear weapons. It’s very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific and we’ve made that very clear.”

Meanwhile earlier this week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a briefing, “We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture, nor do we have indication that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons.”

The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has responded to Biden’s remarks in the past saying, “We will continue to track the statements of the U.S. president in the most attentive way.”