The President warned that the threat of nuclear attack is the highest it’s been in decades.

As Ukraine continues its counter-offensive against the Russian invasion, Russian leaders like President Vladimir Putin have been escalating their rhetoric. Putin has been threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons to protect their alleged ownership of held and annexed Ukrainian territories.

During a Democratic fundraiser last night United States President Joe Biden warned that Putin’s escalating rhetoric is a sign of danger for the entire world. Biden stressed that Putin is “a guy I know fairly well” and that he is “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons.”

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden said, adding that Putin may take extreme measures “because his military is — you might say — significantly underperforming.”

Biden also issued an indirect warning to Russia, cautioning that the use of even one nuclear weapon could spark off a severe chain of events. “I don’t think there is any such a thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon,” Biden said.

In a separate statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that using a nuclear weapon would be the very last option Putin could take. This, ironically, is what prevents Putin from doing it, because he knows that the “world will never forgive” such an action.

“He understands that after the use of nuclear weapons he would be unable any more to preserve, so to speak, his life, and I’m confident of that,” Zelenskyy said.