NEW YORK, March 9. /TASS/. In late 2022, the US began "preparing rigorously" for Russia potentially striking Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, but US intelligence agencies found no evidence that this fear had anything to rely on, CNN reported with reference to two senior officials of the Joe Biden administration.
According to the officials, in the summer of 2022, Washington suspected that Russia might use nuclear weapons in the special military operation zone. During this period from late summer to fall 2022, the National Security Council convened a series of meetings to put contingency plans in place in case of a nuclear strike on Ukraine, CNN said.
At the same time, as the broadcaster stressed, "at no time did the US detect intelligence indicating Russia was taking steps to mobilize its nuclear forces to carry out such an attack."
"We obviously placed a high priority on tracking <...> such movements of its [Russia's] nuclear forces," one of CNN's sources noted."
"And at no point did we ever see any indications of types of steps that we would've expected them to take if they were going down a path toward using nuclear weapons," he pointed out.
In the summer of 2023, US President Joe Biden said that there was no possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in connection with the crisis in Ukraine.
For his part, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier noted while Western leaders indulged in nuclear rhetoric on a daily basis Russia did not have the slightest wish to join in. Peskov also recalled that Moscow could use nuclear weapons only in accordance with the provisions of its nuclear doctrine.