Interesting. Yes, from a totally by-gone era.

from
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/09/politics/us-prepared-rigorously-potential-russian-nuclear-strike-ukraine/index.html

Exclusive: US prepared ‘rigorously’ for potential Russian nuclear strike
in Ukraine in late 2022, officials say
By Jim Sciutto, CNN
8 minute read
Updated 10:06 AM EST, Sat March 9, 2024

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01:15 - Source: CNN

In late 2022, the US began “preparing rigorously” for Russia potentially
striking Ukraine with a nuclear weapon, in what would have been the
first nuclear attack in war since the US dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly eighty years before, two senior
administration officials told CNN.

The Biden administration was specifically concerned Russia might use a
tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon, the officials said.

I first reported US officials were worried about Russia using a tactical
nuclear weapon in 2022, but in my new book, “The Return of Great Powers”
publishing on March 12, I reveal exclusive details on the unprecedented
level of contingency planning carried out as senior members of the Biden
administration became increasingly alarmed by the situation.

“That’s what the conflict presented us, and so we believed ­and I think
it’s our right ­to prepare rigorously and do everything possible to
avoid that happening,” the first senior administration official told me.

What led the Biden administration to reach such a startling assessment
was not one indicator, but a collection of developments, analysis, and –
crucially ­- highly sensitive new intelligence.

The administration’s fear, a second senior administration official told
me, “was not just ­hypothetical —​­ it was also based on some
information that we picked up.”

“We had to plan so that we were in the best possible position in case
this no‑longer unthinkable event actually took place,” the same senior
administration official told me.

During this period from late summer to fall 2022, the National Security
Council convened a series of meetings to put contingency plans in place
“in the event of either a very clear indication that they were about to
do something, attack with a nuclear weapon, or if they just did, how we
would respond, how we would try to preempt it, or deter it,” the first
senior administration official told me.

“I don’t think many of us coming into our jobs expected to be spending
significant amounts of time preparing for a scenario which a few years
ago was believed to be from a bygone era,” this senior administration
official told me.

Russians surrounded
Late summer 2022 was proving a devastating period for Russian forces in
Ukraine. Ukrainian forces were advancing on Russian-occupied Kherson in
the south. The city had been Russia’s biggest prize since the invasion.
Now, it was in danger of being lost to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Crucially, as Ukrainian forces advanced, entire Russian units were in
danger of being surrounded. The view inside the administration was that
such a catastrophic loss could be a “potential trigger” for the use of
nuclear weapons.

A member of the Ukrainian military, 59th Brigade, waits to take on new
supplies before moving to a new position in November 2022 in Kherson,
Ukraine.
A member of the Ukrainian military, 59th Brigade, waits to take on new
supplies before moving to a new position in November 2022 in Kherson,
Ukraine. Chris McGrath/Getty Images/File
“If significant numbers of Russian forces were ­overrun —​­ if their
lives were shattered as such —​­ that was a sort of precursor to a
potential threat directly to Russian territory or the Russian state,”
the first senior administration official said.

“In Kherson at that time there were increasing signs that Russian lines
could collapse. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were potentially
vulnerable.”

Russia was losing ground inside Ukrainian sovereign territory, not
inside Russia. But US officials were concerned that Russian President
Vladimir Putin saw it differently. He had told the Russian people that
Kherson was now part of Russia itself, and, so, might perceive a
devastating loss there as a direct threat to him and the Russian state.

“Our assessment had been for some time that one of the scenarios in
which they would contemplate using nuclear weapons [included] things
like existential threats to the Russian state, direct threats to Russian
territory,” the first senior administration official said.

In such an assessment, Russia could view a tactical nuclear strike as a
deterrent against further losses of Russian-​held territory in Ukraine
as well as any potential attack on Russia itself.

False Flag
At the same time, Russia’s propaganda machine was circulating a new
false flag story about a Ukrainian dirty bomb, which US officials feared
could be intended as cover for a Russian nuclear attack.

In October 2022, Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, made a series
of phone calls to defense officials in the US, the UK, France and
Turkey, telling them that the Kremlin was “concerned about possible
provocations by Kyiv involving the use of a dirty bomb.”

US and other western officials rejected the Russian warnings. Still,
Russia’s UN ambassador delivered a letter directly to the United Nations
detailing the same alleged threat. Russian officials alleged Ukraine
would build and detonate a dirty bomb against Russian forces and then
blame the attack on Russia.

US officials dismissed the Russian warnings but feared the motivation
behind them. “Russian public messaging came way out of the left field on
the potential for Ukraine to use a dirty bomb, which we saw not grounded
in reality,” the first senior administration official told me. “More
concerning” to this official was that the Russians would say these
things “either as a pretext for them to do something crazy or as a cover
for something they themselves were looking at doing. So that was quite
alarming.”

But there was one more piece that raised such concerns to a new level.
Western intelligence agencies had received information that there were
now communications among Russian officials explicitly discussing a
nuclear strike.

As the first senior administration official described it to me, there
were “indications that we were picking up through other means that this
was at least something that lower levels of the Russian system were
discussing.”

US access to Russian internal communications had proved capable before.
In the run‑up to the Ukraine invasion, the US had intercepted Russian
military commanders discussing preparations for the invasion,
communications that formed part of the US intelligence assessment, later
proved accurate, that an invasion was imminent.

“It’s never a cut-and-​dry, black-​and-​white assessment,” the first
senior administration official told me. “But the risk level seemed to be
going up, beyond where it had been at any other point in time.”

Would the US know?
At no time did the US detect intelligence indicating Russia was taking
steps to mobilize its nuclear forces to carry out such an attack.

“We obviously placed a high priority on tracking and had some ability at
least to track such movements of its nuclear forces,” this senior
administration official told me. “And at no point did we ever see any
indications of types of steps that we would’ve expected them to take if
they were going down a path toward using nuclear weapons.”

A dud warhead imitating a nuclear part of a Kh-55SM strategic cruise
missile, which was used by Russian troops during missile attacks on
Ukraine, is seen during a media briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December 2022.
A dud warhead imitating a nuclear part of a Kh-55SM strategic cruise
missile, which was used by Russian troops during missile attacks on
Ukraine, is seen during a media briefing in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December
2022. NurPhoto/Getty Images
However, US officials were not certain they would know if Russia was
moving tactical nuclear weapons into place. Unlike strategic nuclear
weapons, capable of destroying entire cities, tactical or battlefield
nuclear weapons are small enough to be moved quietly and could be fired
from conventional systems already deployed to the Ukrainian battlefield.

“If what they were going to do is use a tactical nuclear weapon,
particularly a very low-​yield tactical nuclear weapon and particularly
if they were only going to use one or a very small number, it was not
one hundred percent clear to us that we necessarily would have known,”
this senior administration official continued.

Multiple senior administration officials took part in an urgent
outreach. Secretary of State Antony Blinken communicated US concerns
“very directly” with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, according
to senior administration officials. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark
Milley called his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, chief
of the general staff of the Russian Armed Forces. According to a senior
US official, President Joe Biden sent CIA Director Bill Burns to speak
to Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service,
in Turkey to communicate US concerns about a nuclear strike taking place
and gauge Russian intentions.