TheCable

United States President Joe Biden says the threat of Russian President Vladimir Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons is real.

Biden made the statement on Monday while speaking to a group of donors in California.

“When I was out here about two years ago saying I worried about the Colorado river drying up, everybody looked at me like I was crazy,” he said.

“They looked at me like when I said I worry about Putin using tactical nuclear weapons. It’s real.”

Biden’s statement comes days after he called Putin’s announcement that Russia had deployed its first tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus “absolutely irresponsible”.

During the St. Petersburg international economic forum on June 16, Putin had announced that the first tactical nuclear weapons to be stationed in Belarus have arrived.

“The first nuclear charges were delivered to the territory of Belarus. But only the first. This is the first part. But by the end of the summer, by the end of the year, we will complete this work,” he said.

On June 13, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko had claimed that the first weapons shipment had arrived in the country.

“We have missiles and bombs that we received from Russia,” he said.

He added that the bombs Belarus received are “three times more powerful than those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945”.

In March, Russia had struck a deal with Belarus to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.

Putin made the announcement as speculations about possible nuclear strikes in the country’s invasion of Ukraine grew.

He had, however, said the move would not violate non-nuclear proliferation agreements.