Vladimir Putin it was so close to using nuclear weapons in October 2022 that Liz Truss spent the last days of his term as prime minister preparing for possible consequencesstates an updated version of his biography.

the first Prime minister reportedly spent his last days in office studying weather maps and preparing for cases of radiation poisoning in the United Kingdom amidst American intelligence, an attack was imminent.

Mrs. Truss He had been told that the Russian president was just hours away from deploying a nuclear bomb, which Whitehall officials feared would spew radioactive material into the atmosphere that could extend 1,700 miles from the explosion, according to Unexpectedlyan unauthorized biography of the former prime minister who was briefly in office.

An updated edition of the book, written by journalists Harry Cole and James Heale, said Truss spent “numerous hours studying satellite weather data and wind directions” out of fear that “incorrect weather patterns” could have a “direct knock-on effect on Great Britain”. .

There was reportedly “exquisite” intelligence from the Americans that pointed to a 50 percent chance that Russia would use a tactical nuclear bomb in Ukraine or a larger bomb over the Black Sea.

Excerpts from the book, published by the sunexposed the gruesome details of how close the war came to a nuclear escalation.

He added that, on October 18 of that year, the then Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace He traveled to Washington to discuss the crisis. At the same time, the American president joe biden He said there was a “direct threat” of Russia deploying nuclear weapons if “things continue the way they are going.” “A nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought,” Biden said at the time.

The updated version of Unexpectedly follows the publication of Mrs Truss’s own book, Ten years to save the Westwhich contained a series of explosive claims about his 49 days in office.

Truss, who lost her seat in the general election, said she thought “why me, why now?” after finding out that the Queen had died, and said Boris JohnsonThe dog left fleas on number 10.

The former prime minister’s book also details how her husband predicted her tenure as prime minister would “end in tears.”

He wrote about the moment he learned that his predecessor, Johnson, was forced to resign.

Mrs Truss was in Bali at the time as foreign secretary and said: “As I walked on the beach in Indonesia I started crying.

“Even Hugh (her husband), who predicted it would all end in tears, accepted that this was the time I was expected to show up and that if I didn’t people would say I had bottled it,” Mrs Truss wrote. .