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Vladimir Putin’s plan to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine two years ago brought the west to the brink of World War Three, it has emerged.
The tyrant had his finger on the button in Autumn 2022, a few months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sparking threats of retaliation from Western allies.
At the time, Russian forces were taking a hammering in Ukraine and mad Vlad’s original plan for a three-day invasion lay in tatters after his troops had retreated from Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
READ MORE: Kremlin mouthpiece slams UK and US for playing 'dangerous game' as WW3 fears ramp up
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As such, he was looking at options that included exploding a "tactical nuclear weapon" over the Black Sea as a show of force, the Sun reports.
Then-UK defence secretary Ben Wallace made an emergency dash to the Pentagon for crisis talks with his US counterparts, it was reported at the time.
Now, Bill Burns, the head of America's CIA, has confirmed there was "genuine risk" that Moscow was about to drop a nuke.
During a speech in London last week, he told how he was “very clear” with his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin what the consequences would be if Putin did go nuclear during crunch talks in Turkey.
Burns did not reveal details of those threats but The Sun reports they included the prospect of "massive and direct" conventional strikes by the US and its allies against Russia.
Defence editor Jerome Starkey wrote: “In other words, World War Three.”
The CIA director said: “I have never thought — and this is the view of my agency — that we should be unnecessarily intimidated by [nuclear threats].
“Putin’s a bully and he is going to continue to sabre-rattle from time to time.”
The head of Britain's MI6, Sir Richard Moore, who shared a stage with Burns, said: "There's only one party talking about nuclear escalation and that's Putin. It's deeply irresponsible.
“Nobody in the West is going to be intimidated by such thoughts or any other behaviour by the Russian state."
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