US will 'destroy' Russian troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons warns ex-CIA Director

In an event that Russia's President Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons, the US and its allies "would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine and will sink its Black Sea fleet," former CIA director and retired four-star US army general David Petraeus warned in a televised interview on Sunday.  “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a NATO, a collective effort, that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea," Petraeus said. 

Ex CIA director stated that he did not speak with the US national security adviser Jake Sullivan on what would Washington's response be like should Russia escalate the conflict with nukes, but added that administration officials have been communicating the response to Moscow via dedicated channels. Retired US Army General also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "losing"the war in Ukraine. He went on to add that "the battlefield reality he [Putin] faces" is "irreversible." His comments came as the Ukrainian forces recaptured the key logistics hub Lyman in the Donetsk region, eastern Donbass, from the Russian troops.

Zelenskyy and his army 'mobilized vastly better than Russia': Ex-CIA Director

In the interview, Petraeus was questioned by ABC's host,  "How significant, how big was Putin's move here? I mean, on one hand, he's announcing this annexation, but he's doing it literally as Russian forces were retreating." Petraeus emphasized that "It is significant, but it's also desperate." He then claimed that Vladimir Putin was losing the war and that the battlefield reality he faces "is, I think irreversible." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his army have "mobilized vastly better than Russia" claimed ex-CIA Director, adding that Zelenskyy "recruited, trained, equipped, organized and employed forces incomparably better than Russia has." 

"And the reality facing Russia now is that Ukraine, a country a third the size of Russia, has a bigger, much more effective army on the ground," Petraeus stressed during the interview. "So he faces a situation that I think again is irreversible. There's no amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it, no amount of annexation, no amount of even veiled nuclear threats, can actually get him out of this particular situation," he went on to add.