Should US worry about nuclear war? Joe Biden says no

United States President Joe Biden said that Americans should not worry about the possibility of nuclear war as the Russian invasion of Ukraine gains momentum. Russian leader Vladimir Putin recently put the country’s nuclear forces on “special alert.”

While responding to a heckling audience in the White House, Joe Biden shouted back “No” after he was asked if people of the United States should worry about a nuclear attack.

Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, took a similar stance during a press briefing and said that the United States would not change its nuclear alert level right now. “We are assessing President Putin’s directive and at this time, we see no reasons to change our own alert levels”, Psaki said in a statement, according to reports from Reuters.

Putin’s recent move turning up the nuclear alert level was tagged as “provocative rhetoric” by the United States. The move “is dangerous, adds to the risk of miscalculation, should be avoided and we will not indulge in it”, the White House said.

After announcing the new nuclear alert level, Putin said in a televised address, “Western countries aren’t only taking unfriendly actions against our country in the economic sphere, but top officials from leading NATO members made aggressive statements regarding our country.”

The move has been heavily condemned by the Western countries, in addition to NATO. Ukraine said that this was Putin’s “pressure tactic” while the White House called it a “manufactured threat.”

“If you combine this rhetoric with what they’re doing on the ground in Ukraine, waging war against an independent sovereign nation, conducting a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine, this adds to the seriousness of the situation”, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Russia is currently the biggest nuclear power in the world, dominating in terms of both — quantity and power. The USSR also holds the record of creating and testing the world’s most powerful nuclear weapon, the Tsar bomb.