Vladimir Putin was apparently so close to launching a nuke in 2022 that Liz Truss spent her brief time in office preparing for the fallout.
A new biography of Ms Truss claims the former prime minister spent her final days in No 10 examining weather maps and preparing for UK radiation cases after American spies warned her that Putin was dangerously close to pressing the button.
The ‘exquisite’ intelligence provided by the US concluded there was a 50% chance Russia could deploy a tactical nuclear weapon on the Ukrainian battlefields or test an even larger bomb in the Black Sea.
The biography reports that the short-lived PM spent numerous hours studying satellite weather data and wind directions over fears the wrong weather patterns could have a direct fall-out effect on Britain.
Liz Truss spent her final days in office preparing for nuclear fallout (Picture: PA Wire)It prompted Ms Truss to spend ‘numerous hours studying satellite weather data and wind directions’ because of fears the ‘wrong weather patterns’ could have a ‘direct fallout effect on Britain,’ the book Out of the Blue by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale claims.
A new book by Watergate journalist Bob Woodward also corroborates reports that the White House believed there was a 50/50 chance of Putin launching a nuke.
That same month, US president Joe Biden warned there was a ‘direct threat’ of Russia deploying nuclear weapons for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis ‘if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going’.
The statement prompted then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to fly to Washington on October 18 that year to discuss the crisis, while the UK government made preparations for the fallout at home.
US ntelligence said there was a 50/50 chance Russia could launch a nuclear weapon (Picture: AP)It comes as Putin prepares to recapture territory before Donald Trump retakes office in January, with approximately 50,000 troops amassing on the borders of the Kursk region in Russia, which was captured by Ukraine over the summer.
Trump has vowed to end the conflict in Ukraine on ‘day one’ of his presidency, and reportedly told the Russian president not to escalate the war any further during a private phone call after being elected.
However, a Kremlin spokesman branded the reports ‘pure fiction’ and said no such phone call took place.
The president-elect has previously criticised the amount of financial support provided to Ukraine by the Biden administration, and his son Don Jr has stoked fears for Ukraine by releasing a video taunting President Zelensky that his ‘allowance’ was about to run out.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is set to urge Joe Biden to provide Ukraine with an additional $20 billion of funding before Trump takes office when he meets with him next week.
Starmer is also expected to tell Biden to allow Ukraine permission to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russian territory, something Zelensky outlined as a crucial component of Ukraine’s ‘victory plan’ over Russia which Biden has opposed for months.
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