- CIA director urges leaders not to fear Kremlin’s nuclear threats
- Concerns over Iran possibly supplying Russia with ballistic missiles
- CIA and MI6 heads emphasize the need for vigilance in Ukraine and Gaza conflicts
Western leaders should not be scared by Kremlin threats of nuclear escalation, the CIA director said on Saturday, amid a dispute over whether Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles should be deployed within Russia.
Bill Burns, on a visit to London with the chief of MI6, said the US had dismissed a prior Russian nuclear panic in autumn 2022, indicating that Moscow’s warnings should not always be taken seriously.
“Putin is a bully. “He’ll continue to saber rattle from time to time,” Burns explained. “We must not be scared by saber-rattling and remain vigilant. The United States has provided great assistance to Ukraine, and I am confident that the president will consider more methods to help them.
The CIA director also stated that the US was working hard on new recommendations for a ceasefire in Gaza, including “texts and creative formulas. He believed that a fresh strategy, developed with the assistance of Qatari and Egyptian mediators, would emerge “in the next several days”.
However, Burns said it was unclear whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar were willing to reach an agreement. It was a matter of political will, he said: “Whether or not leaders on both sides recognize that enough is enough and that the time has come to finally make some hard choices.”
Burns said Israel had succeeded in “severely degrading” Hamas’ military capabilities over the last 11 months but had not eradicated the movement in a battle that had caused a severe humanitarian crisis. “It is also a movement and an idea,” the spy head added, adding that you could only “kill an idea with a better idea,” implying that Palestinians needed to have some hope for the future.
On Ukraine, the experienced spy head was asked if there was too much concern in Washington and other Western capitals about the potential of escalating the conflict by allowing Storm Shadow, a missile with a range of at least 190 miles, to be employed within Russia.
None of us should take lightly the risks of escalation,” Burns told an audience at a Financial Times event in London, adding that the CIA had previously believed Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine during the first year of the conflict.
“There was a moment in the fall [autumn] of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Burns said, but he did not believe such fears should be taken too seriously. “I never thought … we should be unnecessarily intimidated by that,” he said later.
At the time, Russian troops had been pushed back in northern Ukraine and had abandoned Kherson in the south, raising concerns that Russia may use nuclear weapons if a rout occurred. In any case, the frontline became stable shortly after.
Burns stated that Joe Biden, the US president, had directed him to deliver a direct warning to Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, at a meeting in Turkey in November 2022 “to make very clear what the consequences of that kind of escalation would be” – and that a similar approach is in place today.
So far, the White House has been especially unwilling to sanction the employment of Storm Shadow and other long-range missiles within Russia, such as the US-made Atacms, despite repeated requests by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, including one on Friday.
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Burns expressed concern that Iran was considering supplying ballistic missiles to Russia but declined to confirm whether the CIA believed it had done so. It would be a “dramatic escalation” in the two countries’ relationship; Tehran has previously given Russia less effective drones for use in Ukraine.
Burns and his British counterpart, MI6 chief Sir Richard Moore, had never been in public together before their surprise appearance at the ceremony at London’s Kenwood House in Hampstead. Due to tight security, audience members were only informed about who would be appearing 15 minutes in advance.
Moore expressed fear that Russian agents in the UK, Europe, and abroad were growing more reckless as the battle in Ukraine continued. I think Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly,” the British spy director said, citing a recent wave of arson attacks in the UK and other parts of Europe.
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