Vladimir Putin and his crafty nuke plan practically sparked WW3 two years in the past

On Sep 14, 2024

Vladimir Putin’s plan to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine two years ago brought the west to the brink of World War Three, it has emerged.

The tyrant had his finger on the button in Autumn 2022, a few months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking threats of retaliation from Western allies.

At the time, Russian forces were taking a hammering in Ukraine and mad Vlad’s original plan for a three-day invasion lay in tatters after his troops had retreated from Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

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As such, he was looking at options that included exploding a “tactical nuclear weapon” over the Black Sea as a show of force, the Sun reports.

A nuclear missile on a military vehicle — Mad Vlad sits on the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal and often threatens to unleash it
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Then-UK defence secretary Ben Wallace made an emergency dash to the Pentagon for crisis talks with his US counterparts, it was reported at the time.

Now, Bill Burns, the head of America’s CIA, has confirmed there was “genuine risk” that Moscow was about to drop a nuke.

During a speech in London last week, he told how he was “very clear” with his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin what the consequences would be if Putin did go nuclear during crunch talks in Turkey.

A mockup of a Soviet AN-602 hydrogen bomb — Britain and the US said they must stand up to Putin as he is a bully
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Burns did not reveal details of those threats but The Sun reports they included the prospect of “massive and direct” conventional strikes by the US and its allies against Russia.

Defence editor Jerome Starkey wrote: “In other words, World War Three.”

The CIA director said: “I have never thought — and this is the view of my agency — that we should be unnecessarily intimidated by [nuclear threats].

A ballistic missile takes to the sky with a cloud of smoke below it — Putin’s original plan for a three-day invasion was in tatters, so the tyrant looked towards his nuclear arsenal
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

“Putin’s a bully and he is going to continue to sabre-rattle from time to time.”

The head of Britain’s MI6, Sir Richard Moore, who shared a stage with Burns, said: “There’s only one party talking about nuclear escalation and that’s Putin. It’s deeply irresponsible.

“Nobody in the West is going to be intimidated by such thoughts or any other behaviour by the Russian state.”

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