The Biden administration planned an emergency: the US prepared for a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine

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What CNN reported on Saturday sounds worrying: at the end of 2022, the US government began “strictly preparing” for a possible attack by Russia on Ukraine with a nuclear weapon. Many members of the Biden administration were increasingly concerned about the situation at the time, two senior administration officials told the US broadcaster.

“That is what the conflict has shown us. I think it is our right to prepare rigorously and do everything we can to prevent this,” said a senior official. According to the report, the assessment of the explosive situation was not based on a single indicator, but consisted of a whole collection of developments, analyzes and intelligence information.

The threat “was not only hypothetical, but was also based on information we had gathered,” said a second government official. “We had to plan so that we were in the best possible position if this unthinkable event no longer occurred.”

Difficult situation in late summer 2022

In the period from late summer to fall 2022, the US National Security Council has drawn up contingency plans “in case there is a very clear indication that they are about to attack with a nuclear weapon, or if they just do it . ” One of the informants added that he never thought he would spend much time preparing a screenplay that just a few years ago would have been thought to be from a bygone era.

The late summer of 2022 was not a good time for the Russian armed forces. Ukrainian forces advanced south towards Russian-occupied Kherson, Russia’s biggest prize since the start of the campaign. Now the city was in danger of being lost. The Biden administration viewed the moment when Russian units were surrounded as they entered Ukraine as a “potential trigger” for the use of nuclear weapons. “In Kherson there were increasing signs that the Russian lines might collapse. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were potentially at risk,” one of the officials said.

Russia lost ground in Ukraine. But some US officials assumed that Russian President Vladimir Putin, 71, who considers Kherson Russian, would view the loss of territory as an attack on the Russian Federation.

Concerns increased when Western intelligence services received information that there were now communications between Russian officials explicitly mentioning a nuclear attack. But: at no point was there any evidence that Russia had actually mobilized its nuclear forces for a nuclear attack on Ukraine. The danger eventually subsided as the war in Eastern Europe approached a stalemate.

The US remains vigilant

However, the US and its allies remain vigilant. “It is entirely possible that we will be confronted with this increasing danger again in the coming months,” government circles say.

If Russia uses a nuclear bomb in Ukraine, it would be the first nuclear attack in a war since the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly eighty years ago.

Source: Blick