Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has called for the Biden administration to guarantee that it won’t engage in a first-use nuclear strike against Russia amid the escalating war in Ukraine, but officials have indicated that the United States will likely maintain its policy of “strategic ambiguity.”
Markey called for the administration to announce a no first use (NFU) policy on May 12 during a Senate Committee Foreign Relations hearing. His statements come two days after Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use nuclear weapons if he feels like he’s losing the war.
“We’re supporting Ukraine, but also we don’t want to ultimately end up in World War III, and we don’t want to end up in a situation where actors are using nuclear weapons,” Haines told the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 10.  “We perceive that as something that [Putin] is unlikely to do unless there is effectively an existential threat to his regime and to Russia from his perspective.
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