Pentagon spokesperson tamps down concerns over nuclear ‘Armageddon’

The Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby: ‘Nor have we seen anything that would give us pause to reconsider our own strategic nuclear posture.’ Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The US military’s top spokesperson tamped down concerns of an imminent nuclear threat from Russia, days after Joe Biden warned of a potential nuclear “Armageddon”.

Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser this week, Biden talked bluntly about the threat of a nuclear attack from Russia. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” the president said. He added that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming” after invading Ukraine earlier this year.