General and former CIA director David Petraeus said that if Russia uses a nuclear bomb in Ukraine, the United States will respond by leading NATO's efforts to eliminate all Russian forces. “Traditional” on the Ukrainian battlefield as well as in the formerly annexed Crimea.
The French newspaper "Le Figaro" said that the general added in an interview with the American channel "ABC" that "all ships in the Black Sea" will be destroyed, after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened the possibility of using nuclear weapons.
Petraeus - who confirmed that he was speaking on his own behalf and without referring to the US National Security Adviser - said that the use of nuclear weapons is a risk that cannot be "accepted under any circumstances," noting that "Vladimir Putin is desperate (...) because the reality of the battlefield it faces is His country is irreversible, and neither mobilization nor annexation nor nuclear threat can get him out of such a situation," according to Petraeus.
These statements come only a few days after the Russian president confirmed that any attack on the new territories annexed by Russia (the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye) would be considered aggression against Russia, casting doubt on the possibility of Moscow's use of nuclear weapons.
Petraeus also acknowledged that the potential for the spread of nuclear radiation from such an attack to NATO countries could be interpreted as an attack on a member state of the alliance under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, bearing in mind that an attack on a member of the alliance is an attack directed at all of its states.
According to Petraeus, the first step to resolving this conflict will only be through the negotiating table.