Putin Downplays Nuclear War as World Leaders Reaffirm Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday said that there could be "no winners in a nuclear war" and that one "should never be unleashed."

Putin’s statement was directed at the diplomats reaffirming the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The month-long United Nations conference, which was initially scheduled for 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will see world leaders reiterate the importance of denuclearization. Kicking off the series of meeting in New York, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that "humanity is just one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation" due to a nuclear danger that hasn't been detected "since the height of the Cold War." Four of the nine known nuclear-armed countries — India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan — are not signatories to the treaty. North Korea, which previously pledged to suspend nuclear testing, has repeatedly  threatened to use its "nuclear war deterrent" against the U.S. 

Outlets across the spectrum noted Putin's "change of tone" from the start of his invasion of Ukraine when he warned protruding Western nations would face "consequences you have never seen" — a statement that was "widely interpreted to be a nuclear threat."