PM Modi helped prevent ‘potential nuclear attack’ in Ukraine: Report

Prime Minister Narendra Modi played a pivotal role in preventing a potential Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, a CNN report has claimed.

According to the report, which cited two senior officials, the United States had been preparing rigorously for a potential nuclear strike by Russia on Ukraine.

The report claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to Vladimir Putin, along with the intervention of other countries, played an important role in averting a nuclear disaster.

The officials told the US-based network that the Joe Biden administration was concerned that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons to deal a deadly blow to Ukraine’s war efforts.

US officials say that outreach and public statements from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi helped avert a crisis, CNN reported.

“One of the things we did was not only message them directly but strongly urge, press, and encourage other countries, to whom they might be more attentive, to do the same thing,” the senior administration official told CNN.

“I think we believe showing the international community the concern about this, particularly the concern from key countries for Russia and the Global South, was also a helpful, persuasive factor and showed them what the cost of all this could be. I think the fact that we know, India weighed in, China weighed in, others weighed in, may have had some effect on their thinking,” the officer said.

India hasn’t directly criticised Russia. However, PM Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin that this is not the era of war.

CNN reported that Russian units were in danger of being surrounded, precipitating the danger of nuclear attack.

It said Russia was also circulating a false story about a Ukrainian dirty bomb, which could have been used as a ruse for a nuclear strike.

“We obviously placed a high priority on tracking and had some ability at least to track such movements of its nuclear forces,” a senior administration official said.

“And at no point did we ever see any indications of the types of steps that we would’ve expected them to take if they were going down a path toward using nuclear weapons,” he added.