'We've never been here'

Last week, President Joe Biden and former top intelligence officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen  both highlighted the increased threat of Russia using a nuclear weapon. What does that mean for people in Ukraine and across the world?

Hi, it's Julius with an update on Ukraine. 

Many security experts have agreed with Biden that the current situation is fraught with potential danger, including if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to deploy one of the smaller nuclear weapons at his disposal.

The detonation of even one of Russia’s least powerful nukes, they say, could kill potentially tens of thousands of people and render an area unlivable – or certainly inhospitable – for months if not years.

Longtime U.S. defense and intelligence official Elbridge Colby said Putin's longstanding preoccupation with building up Russia's nuclear capabilities, combined with his current predicament in Ukraine, "leads me to think that it is a serious possibility" Putin could detonate some kind of nuclear device, most likely in a battlefield setting.

In an interview with former acting CIA director Michael Morell, Mowatt-Larssen said those within the U.S. and allied governments are monitoring Russian threats, and that they are “preparing for any number of options.”

“We've never been here, in a place where it's clear that it's a possibility,” said Mowatt-Larssen. “And the reasons for it are pretty self-evident, given the extent to which the Russian army is failing, which it is, and the Ukrainians are strengthening, which they are. That makes it more likely because he has fewer and fewer options.”

However, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday the Pentagon has not seen indications that Putin is preparing to use nuclear weapons.

• NATO defense ministers were meeting Wednesday to coordinate plans for providing Ukraine with more weaponry.
• U.S. officials have made no progress toward freeing WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner from a Moscow prison, President Joe Biden said.