Former CIA Director and retired Army General David Petraeus said Sunday (2nd) that the United States and its allies would destroy Russia’s soldiers and equipment in Ukraine and sink its fleet in the Black Sea if Russian President Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in the country.
Petraeus said he has not yet spoken to the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Washington’s likely response to Russia’s nuclear escalation. But in an interview with ABC News, he said he had a “hypothesis.”
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“Just to give you a chance, we would respond by leading a collective NATO effort [Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte] that would eliminate all conventional Russian forces that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and on all ships in the Black Sea,” the former CIA director said.
The warning comes days after Putin expressed views that many interpreted as a threat of a wider war between Russia and Ukraine’s western allies.
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Petraeus reminded that Russia’s use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would not necessarily draw the United States and NATO into the war, since Ukraine is not part of the military alliance and such aggression would not trigger their Article 5, which requires a defense requires collective.
However, a “USNATO response” would be appropriate, he said. The former CIA director conceded that the likelihood that the radiation would spread to NATO countries under the umbrella of Article 5 could perhaps be interpreted as an attack on a NATO member.
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“The other case is that this is so awful that there has to be an answer — it can’t go unanswered,” he said. However, Petraeus added that getting into a nuclear escalation is dangerous, “but one has to show that this cannot be accepted in any way”.
The US military official also said the Moscow leader was “desperate” amid mounting pressure on Putin after Ukraine’s gains in the east of the country and resistance to military enlistment from Russia.
“The reality of the battlefield he faces is irreversible in my opinion,” he said. “Not a lot of chaotic mobilization, that’s the only way to describe it; no garnishment amount; No amount of nuclear threat, no matter how veiled, can really get you out of this particular situation,” Petraeus said.
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“At some point it has to be acknowledged. At some point there has to be some kind of start of negotiations,” he added. But Petraeus warned that the picture for Putin and Russia could deteriorate further, “not even the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield will change that.”
Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that Putin had two choices: establish defensive lines or withdraw and lose territory.
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Rubio said he thought it was “quite possible” that Putin could attack distribution points where US and allied supplies are pouring into Ukraine, including Poland. The senator acknowledged the nuclear threat but said the biggest concern was “a Russian attack inside NATO territory, for example at the Polish airport or some other distribution point.”
“NATO will have to respond,” he said.
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