US President Joe Biden said Thursday the world is risking nuclear “Armageddon” for the first time since the Cold War and he is trying to find Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “exit” in the Ukraine conflict.

“We haven’t faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962,” Biden said at a Democratic Party fundraiser in New York.

Putin is not joking when he threatens to use nuclear weapons to continue his invasion of Ukraine, Biden said.

Biden made his unusually strong comments about the risks posed by Putin’s nuclear threats while speaking to party supporters at an event at the Manhattan home of James Murdoch, son of newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Referring to the nuclear standoff sparked by the Soviet Union’s deployment of missiles in Cuba within range of the United States, Biden said that for the “first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis we have a direct threat of using nuclear weapons, if that happens.” the case is the fact that things keep going the way they go.”

Putin has issued thinly-veiled threats to use nuclear weapons when he feels he has run out of options in his attempt to seize parts of Ukrainian territory in the face of stiff opposition from western defender Kyiv.

Experts say these would most likely be relatively small, tactical strikes. But Biden warned that a tactical strike in a confined area still carries the risk of starting a larger conflagration.

“We have a guy that I know pretty well,” Biden said. Putin “doesn’t joke when he talks about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you could say, well below average.”

“However, I don’t think there is such a thing as the ability to just[deploy]a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up in Armageddon,” Biden said.

“I’m trying to figure out what Putin’s exit is,” Biden said. “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position from which he not only loses face but also loses significant power within Russia?”