Washington —
The United States minimized the risk of a nuclear war with Russia and ruled out a possible change in the alert levels of the US arsenal, although it considered that the measures in this regard by Moscow are “dangerous”.
At the end of an act in the White House, the American president, Joe Biden, answered with a resounding “no” to the question of whether the Americans should be worried about the possibility of a nuclear war.
Biden did not comment further, but his spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, later discussed in greater depth Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order to put the country’s nuclear potential on alert, or “special duty regime.”
“We believe that provocative rhetoric about nuclear weapons is dangerous and amplifies the risk of miscalculation. It should be avoided, and we are not going to encourage it,” Psaki said at his daily press conference.
“We continue to analyze President Putin’s order and at this time we see no reason to change our own alert levels,” the spokeswoman continued, adding that “a nuclear war cannot be won.”
A US defense source quoted by CNN said Monday that the words Putin used to describe his order – putting Russian deterrent forces on “special duty regime” – are not in Russian military doctrine, and that the US. The US is still studying what they mean.
Russia’s deterrence forces comprise nuclear strategies, including intercontinental missiles, as well as non-nuclear forces, and anti-missile defense, early warning system and anti-aircraft defense.
Psaki also reiterated that Washington is not willing to impose a “no-fly zone” in Ukraine to curb Russian bombing, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for on Monday.
“The president (Biden) has made it very clear that he does not intend to send American troops to fight a war against Russia, and a no-fly zone would basically be a step towards that, because it would require deploying the military to apply it,” he stressed.
Hours after the United States sanctioned the Russian central bank, Psaki recalled that although imposing restrictions on Russia’s energy sector would be effective as a retaliation against Moscow, for now Washington wants to avoid them because they would have “extreme consequences” on global markets.
“Europeans in particular are very concerned about rising (energy) prices,” he stressed.
And after Canada and most European countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines and Russia responded with reciprocal measures, Psaki assured that the United States keeps the option of doing the same “on the table”, but that it has not Took a decision.
“There are a lot of flights from US airlines that fly over Russia to go to Asia and other parts of the world, so we have to take a number of factors into account,” the spokeswoman said.