As of: March 12, 2024, 4:00 a.m
By: Nils Hinsberger
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In intercepted conversations, Russia is said to have discussed the use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war.
Did Scholz prevent a nuclear war through talks with China?
New York – For more than two years, the war in Ukraine has shown what horrors a military conflict can conjure up.
Massive losses on both sides, misery among the Ukrainian population and fear of the conflict spreading into the heart of Europe.
One thing could increase the scale of the horror in Ukraine - a nuclear attack from Russia.
And in fact, the fear of a nuclear strike by Russia's ruler Vladimir Putin already seems to have been quite real.
When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive against Russia in October 2022 and made major territorial gains, the US intercepted secret communications from the Kremlin, reports the
New York Times
.
In a speech to party colleagues in New York, US President Joe Biden even warned that the world was “exposed to a direct threat from the use of a nuclear weapon for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis,” the paper now reminds us.
Biden warned against using nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war in his “Armageddon speech”.
Unlike the threats from Russia's propaganda apparatus, which with a certain regularity threatens to use nuclear weapons against the West, the situation at that time was about a concrete danger.
The intercepted conversations from Russia indicated the use of nuclear weapons in the following weeks.
Nuclear strike in the Ukraine war?
In a speech, Biden warned of a possible escalation by Putin in the Ukraine war.
© Imago (montage)
The report states that the relevance of the various recordings varied.
Some conversations were just “various forms of chatter,” a U.S. official said.
However, recordings from Russian units that were said to have been responsible for the use of nuclear weapons were much more specific.
In addition, a senior Russian commander spoke about the logistical steps of a nuclear strike in Ukraine.
At the time of Biden's speech, which was internally referred to as the "Armageddon speech", the Russian recordings were the only evidence of a possible use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war.
In a briefing
, Biden was told that there was no evidence that Putin had readied his nuclear weapons, according to
the New York Times .
The likelihood of a nuclear strike depended on the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Nuclear bomb against Ukraine as Putin's last trump card?
“If Putin and those around him get the impression that their backs are against the wall, it will be dangerous,” said retired Brigadier General Helmut Ganser in an interview with the
Frankfurter Rundschau
.
He sees retaking Crimea, which was actually an option at the time of Biden's “Armageddon speech,” as a possible trigger point for the use of nuclear bombs.
And Putin has enough of them.
“Probably around 1,800 weapons,” stated Ganser.
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US General Mark A. Milley also came to the same conclusion.
He told the
New York Times
that the more successfully Ukraine can defend itself against the Russian attack, the more likely it is that "Putin will threaten to use a bomb - or resort to it."
Did Scholz prevent the use of Russian nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war through talks with China?
NATO took the threat from Russia very seriously.
In order to prevent the possible use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, there were diplomatic discussions at the highest level.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) also contributed to de-escalating the situation through a meeting with China's President Xi Jinping.
During his visit to China, Scholz spoke to Xi about the threat of a global nuclear war and the intercepted Russian conversations - probably with success.
After the meeting, the Chinese president spoke out against the use of nuclear weapons not only in state media.
The USA had also prepared for a possible escalation in the Ukraine war.
Two high-ranking government officials told CNN
that
the USA had also held talks with China and India.
The two countries were called upon to speak out publicly against the use of nuclear weapons.
The fact that the two countries actually opposed the use of such weapons "may have had some influence on their thinking," one of the officials told
CNN
, referring to the Kremlin.
(
nhi
)