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Russian President Vladimir Putin has put his nuclear forces on an elevated alert status.
Putin raised the alert status for his nuclear forces to “special regime of combat duty” as Russia and Ukraine battle for the fourth day.
This move signals tensions could boil over into a nuclear war.
“He is right now threatening a nuclear escalation,” said former DIA intelligence officer Rebekah Koffler.
“This a veiled threat – or maybe such a veiled threat – he just met with his chief of general staff and minister of defense. He is escalating the conflict into the nuclear domain in order to de-escalate – that is topple Kyiv’s regime quickly.”
Putin ordered the Russian defense minister and the chief of the military’s General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty.”
A senior U.S. defense official confirmed this information to Fox News, adding that there is no reason to doubt the validity of reports on Putin’s actions.
“We believe this is not only an unnecessary step to take but an escalatory one,” the U.S. official responded.
This step “could make things much more dangerous,” the U.S. official adde. “We have no reason to doubt the validity of this order but how it’s manifested itself is not completely clear yet.”
The Pentagon is “confident” it has the ability to defend “the Homeland, allies and partners” with “tough strategic deterrence.”
However, the Pentagon is still working to “assess what this action actually means in tangible terms.”
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice weighed in on the situation by claiming Putin appears “erratic” and is “descending” into something she’s never personally seen before.
“He was always calculating and cold. But this is different. He seems erratic,” Rice said.
“There is an ever-deepening, delusional rendering of history, it was always a kind of victimology about what had happened to them, but now it goes back to blaming Lenin for the foundation of Kyiv … in Ukraine,” Rice responded.
Rice has met with Putin at least a half a dozen times across her career.
