President Vladimir Putin may use a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon if his invasion of Ukraine fails, CIA Director William Burns said Thursday.

“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said during a speech in Atlanta.

The Russian nuclear forces were put on high alert shortly after the assault began on February 24, but the US has not seen “a lot of practical evidence” of actual deployments, Burns told Georgia Tech students.

“We’re obviously very concerned. I know President Biden is deeply concerned about avoiding a third world war, about avoiding a threshold in which, you know, nuclear conflict becomes possible,” said Burns.

Russia has several tactical nuclear weapons that are less potent than the US Hiroshima bomb.

If things go wrong in a conventional battle with the West, Russia’s military doctrine calls for deploying a low-yield first strike nuclear weapon to reclaim the initiative.

But under this hypothesis, “NATO would intervene militarily on the ground in Ukraine in the course of this conflict, and that’s not something, as President Biden has made very clear, that’s in the cards.”

Burns, who was formerly the US ambassador to Russia, called Putin a  “apostle of payback” who over the years “has stood in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity.”

“Every day, Putin demonstrates that declining powers can be at least as disruptive as rising ones,” Burns said.

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