Published: 5th of October, 2022

As Russia continues to face major setbacks and heavy losses in its bid to annex parts of Ukraine, the United States has issued a strong warning to Putin not to use nuclear weapons. Most obviously, Putin knows that this would breach all international treaties and protocols, and spark a backlash of catastrophic proportions. The possibility of Putin making use of his nuclear arsenal in the war against Ukraine grows greater by the way, and Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen Republic, which has been fighting alongside Russia, has been pressuring Putin to engage the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Putin’s rambling about his nukes is worrying by itself as it could trigger a nuclear world war that would send the world into Armageddon, but what’s even more worrying is one retired army general’s proposed response to such an event. Former CIA director and retired army general, David Petraeus, told ABC News that the United States’ and Nato’s response to Russia’s use of nuclear weapons would be to wipe up every Russian troop in Ukraine and Crimea, and sink every ship in the Black Sea.

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.

David Petraeus speaking to ABC News

But this kind of response is worrying because it leaves the Russian military command center alive and kicking – and gives it enough time to retaliate against NATO interference. Attacking Russian troops in the battlefield gives Putin enough time to wipe out the United States and nuke other countries. Patraeus said he was speaking his opinion on what the United States and Nato would do if Russia crosses the line and uses nuke, but that he doesn’t know exactly. And that makes us breathe a sigh of relief since we can only hope that the United States and Nato as a whole knows better.

Petraeus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow. And that’s comforting, because we sure hope the United States knows that it has to destroy the Russian military’s command center and keep a tab on its allies if it ever fires a nuke.