CIA director says Russian counterpart ‘understood’ warnings against using nuclear weapon

CIA Director William Burns said he communicated in a meeting with Russia’s spy chief the “serious consequences” that would follow if Moscow ever used a nuclear weapon, a warning that Burns said his Russian counterpart “understood.”

“What [President Biden] asked me to do, which was to make clear to [Sergey] Naryshkin, and through him to President Putin, the serious consequences should Russia ever choose to use a nuclear weapon of any kind,” Burns said in an interview with CBS’s “Face The Nation.” “I think Naryshkin understood the seriousness of that issue and I think President Putin has understood it as well.”

Burns met with Naryshkin three months ago, laying down the warning to the Russians about the use of nuclear weapons in the midst of the country’s war with Ukraine.

Since then, Russia has pulled itself out of an agreement with the U.S. that placed limits on the capacity of each country’s nuclear arsenal, with Putin vowing to strengthen Russia’s nuclear weapons.

Burns said on CBS that the meeting with Naryshkin was “pretty dispiriting,” describing the Russian as “defiant” and displaying “cockiness.”

“There was a very defiant attitude on the part of Mr. Naryshkin,” Burns said. “A sense of cockiness and hubris, in sense reflecting Putin’s own view … that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down Ukrainians, that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.”

Burns also said he thinks Putin believes that eventually U.S. and western attention will turn to another issue, giving him the opportunity in the long run to win the war.