At the end of 2022, the Administration of the President of the United States "rigorously prepared" for a possible tactical nuclear strike by Russian forces on Ukraine. This was no ordinary concern — the apprehensions were based on information received.
CNN writes about this with reference to two sources from the Biden administration.
Consultations on this issue were held at the highest level. The USA wanted to prepare and do everything possible to prevent Russia from taking this step. Against the backdrop of Russiaʼs military defeats from the summer to the fall of 2022, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine regained control over most of the Kharkiv region, as well as over the city of Kherson, there were official statements from the Russian side about the alleged development of a "dirty bomb" by Ukraine. American officials feared that this could be a cover for a Russian nuclear attack.
They also believed that Putin could consider the loss of captured lands as an "existential threat to the Russian state" and order a nuclear strike as a deterrent. The intelligence showed that Russian officers and officials discussed such a scenario, but the intelligence did not record the activity of the Russian nuclear forces. However, the Biden administration did not rule out that they simply may not know about the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons.
After assessing the risks, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken directly expressed his concerns to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, called his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov. Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns discussed this issue with the head of Russiaʼs Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin.
The US also worked closely with its allies on a nuclear attack contingency plan and collective warnings to the Russian side about the consequences. There were also communications with India and China, which also have nuclear weapons. CNN sources say Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped avert a nuclear crisis.
After that, the threat of using nuclear weapons decreased somewhat, but no one rejects further tensions.