CIA Director Bill Burns testifies alongside Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines during a House Intelligence Committee (Select) hearing on diversity in the intelligence community, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 27, 2021.
Elizabeth Franz | Reuters
CIA Director William Burns said he believes there is a real risk in the fall of 2022 that Russia could use nuclear weapons on the battlefield against Ukraine, though he said the West should not be alarmed by Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats.
“None of us should take lightly the risks of escalation,” Burns said Saturday during a conversation with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service chief Richard Moore at the Financial Times Weekend Festival.
“There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I thought there was a real risk of the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” Burns said.
“I never thought, and this is my agency's view, that we should be unduly afraid of this,” Burns added. “Putin is a bully. He will continue to threaten with a gun.”
At President Joe Biden's behest, Burns met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Naryshkin, in late 2022 to reiterate the “consequences” of nuclear escalation, according to the CIA director.
“We've continued to be very direct about this,” Burns said Saturday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC, which was sent outside regular business hours.
For more than two years since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has regularly indicated that it might consider using nuclear weapons in the war.
These hints have grown stronger since Ukraine's attack on Russia's Kursk region in early August, which Putin vowed to meet with an “adequate response.”
The attack on Kursk boosted the morale of Ukrainian forces, and in turn, shook the Kremlin, Burns said: “It exposed some of the weaknesses in Putin’s Russia and his military.”
The official Russian nuclear doctrine is defensive in nature and is based on the principle of deterrence. It allows the use of nuclear weapons in response to any nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction attack against Russia or its allies, as well as any conventional attack threatening the existence of the Russian state.
But in the wake of Ukraine's incursion into Kursk, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said last Sunday that the Kremlin was working on amendments to the nuclear law.
“There is a clear trend towards making adjustments,” Ryabkov said, though he did not specify details on whether the nuclear doctrine changes would eventually be finalized.
