The White House assured that Russian President Vladimir Putin continues with his tactic of “manufacturing threats” to “justify greater aggression” after Moscow’s announcement of the alerting of its nuclear deterrent forces amid the Russian military invasion to Ukraine.
This was expressed by Jen Psaki, the spokeswoman for US President Joe Biden, in an interview on the ABC television network in which she responded to the information from Moscow.
“This is really a pattern that we’ve seen from President Putin throughout this conflict, which is to fabricate threats that don’t exist to justify further aggression,” Psaki said.
The spokeswoman responded in this way to Moscow’s announcement that it was putting its Russian nuclear deterrent forces in a “special service regime” after “aggressive declarations” by the main NATO countries.
Psaki remarked that “the global community and the American people should see it through this prism” since “at no time has Russia been under threat from NATO, or has Russia been under threat from Ukraine.”
Washington on Saturday approved a new $350 million military assistance package to Ukraine, and Psaki indicated that Biden is willing to expand support in the future.
Russia’s strategic deterrent forces comprise nuclear forces, including intercontinental missiles, as well as non-nuclear forces, missile defense, early warning system and air defense.
Putin gave these instructions in a meeting this Sunday with the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Valeri Gerasimov.