‘The stakes are very high’: John Kirby doubles down on Biden’s ‘Armageddon’ comments
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden’s recent remark regarding the “prospect of Armageddon” over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats reflects “the very high stakes that are in play right now.”
ABC “This Week” host Martha Raddatz asked Kirby about Biden’s comment last week that there’s a potential nuclear Armageddon.
Kirby responded, “The president was reflecting the very high stakes that are in play right now.”
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He continued: “When you have modern nuclear power and the leader of that modern nuclear power willing to use irresponsible rhetoric the way that Mr. Putin has several times in just the last week or two, as well as the high tension in Ukraine over just the course of the last few days … so the president, I think, was accurately reflecting the fact that the stakes are very high right now.”
Kirby then clarified that Biden’s comments were “not based on new or fresh intelligence or new indications that Mr. Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons and, quite frankly, we don't have any indication that he has made that kind of decision.”
But he added, “Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture in our efforts to defend our own national security interests and those of our allies and partners.
Kirby said the president has also said, “neither we nor our allies are going to be intimidated by this.”
At a Democratic fundraiser in New York City last Thursday, Biden said Putin was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” he added, according to The Associated Press, which noted that the president’s remarks were the starkest warnings yet by the U.S. government about the nuclear stakes.
Biden also suggested the threat from Putin is real “because his military is — you might say — significantly underperforming.”
Last month, Putin said, “I want to remind you that our country also has various means of destruction ... and when the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal. It’s not a bluff,” as quoted by the AP.
As the Russian invasion entered its seventh month in October, Ukraine sought an accelerated membership in NATO after Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces: the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Putin claimed that residents in the annexed Ukrainian regions voted in a referendum to join his nation.
Ukrainian officials called the voting coerced by Russian soldiers.
“The Kremlin’s sham referenda are a futile effort to mask what amounts to a further attempt at a land grab in Ukraine,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement at the time. “To be clear: the results were orchestrated in Moscow and do not reflect the will of the people of Ukraine.”
The U.S. has sent more than $9.8 billion in civilian and military assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February.
Late last month, Biden signed a bill that includes an additional $12.3 billion for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
Apart from Ukraine aid and funding for government agencies, the bill authorizes Biden to direct the drawdown of up to $3.7 billion for the transfer of excess weapons to Ukraine from U.S. stocks.
According to the United Nations Office for High Commissioner for Human Rights, as of Oct. 2, at least 6,114 civilians have been killed and 9,132 injured since the invasion started on Feb. 24.
