Little is left to chance in diplomacy.

In New York last week, the US Secretary of State made no attempt to downplay the latest escalation in the Ukraine war.

The fact that the Russian President chose the week of the general debate at the United Nations to pour fuel on the fire shows his contempt for the UN Charter, said Antony Blinken.

Every member of the Security Council must send a clear message to Vladimir Putin that "these irresponsible nuclear threats must stop immediately." Blinken's appearance should make it clear that Russia is in the process of giving the war a new character.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

  • Follow I follow

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

  • Follow I follow

Putin had made sure he was the dominant issue on the East River.

In a speech published on Wednesday to mobilize his reservists, he said: "When the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, to protect Russia and our people, we absolutely use all means at our disposal." That was "not a bluff".

Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's deputy on the National Security Council, was even clearer: "Any Russian weapon could be used to "protect" the annexed areas, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons on new bases." upright.

“Western interference” warning

The State Department hosted a conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis sixty years ago, just last Friday, when the United States and the Soviet Union came close to a nuclear confrontation.

"We do not threaten anyone with nuclear weapons," said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, only to immediately qualify: "At the same time, we warn of the risks of Western interference in the military special operation in Ukraine, and urge the American administration to avoid situations that could lead to a direct confrontation with Russia.”

In his speech in the general debate in New York, one day before Blinken's appearance on the Security Council, President Joe Biden sharply criticized the sham referendums in Ukraine and the mobilization - and spoke of "blatant nuclear threats".

As in the spring, when Putin made nuclear threats, the president left it at that.

This follows the calculation of letting the rhetorical escalation come to nothing.

So far no consequences "on the ground"

So far, Putin's nuclear threats have had no military effect.

And this time, too, the National Security Council (NSC) in Washington announced that it was a "dangerous precedent" for Putin to use this type of rhetoric.

And one must take these "irresponsible" threats seriously.

But NSC spokesman John Kirby added: Watch Russia's nuclear capabilities as best you can.

He said there is no evidence that "we currently need to change our nuclear deployment" to increase deterrence.

This corresponds to the findings of the investigation, which the American military published at the end of February, after Putin had threatened "unprecedented consequences" in the event that a third party tried to stand in Russia's way and shortly afterwards announced that his put deterrence forces on alert.

That also had no consequences “on the ground”, it was said in Washington at the time.

However, Blinken's words in the Security Council showed that the Russian President's most recent statement was classified as more dangerous: Putin's announcement was all the more threatening against the background that he intends to annex large areas of Ukraine in the coming days, he said.