Putin says Russia ready for nuclear war, but ‘not everything rushing to it’
Russia remains in a state of combat readiness and is fully ready for a nuclear war, but not “everything is rushing to it” at present, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Wednesday (13 March).
In an interview with state media, Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is certain to win the 15 to 17 March presidential election, said Russia would be ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty was threatened.
“From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin told Rossiya-1 television and news agency RIA in response to a question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war.
He said the United States understands that if it deploys American troops on Russian territory – or to Ukraine – Russia would treat the move as an intervention.
“(In the United States) there are enough specialists in the field of Russian-American relations and in the field of strategic restraint,” Putin said.
“Therefore, I don’t think that here everything is rushing to it (nuclear confrontation), but we are ready for this.”
He reiterated that the use of nuclear weapons was spelled out in the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine, its policy setting out the circumstances in which Russia might use its weapons.
“Weapons exist in order to use them,” Putin said. “We have our own principles.”
If the United States conducted nuclear tests, Russia might do the same, he added in the wide-ranging interview.
“It’s not necessary … we still need to think about it, but I don’t rule out that we can do the same.”
However, Putin said Russia had never faced a need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, where the conflict has raged since February 2022.
“Why do we need to use weapons of mass destruction? There has never been such a need.”
Deploying more troops
Putin said that Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO is “a meaningless step” and that Russia will deploy troops and systems of destruction to the Finnish border after Finland joins the alliance.
“This is an absolutely meaningless step (for Finland and Sweden) from the point of view of ensuring their own national interests,” Putin said.
“We didn’t have troops there (at the Finnish border), now they will be there. There were no systems of destruction there, now they will appear.”
Putin said that if US troops appear in Ukraine, Russia will treat them as interventionists.
North Korea ‘has its own nuclear umbrella’
Putin also was quoted as saying that North Korea has its own “nuclear umbrella” and Pyongyang has not asked Moscow for any help.
“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has its own nuclear umbrella,” Putin told Russia’s RIA state news agency and Rossiay-1 state television in a wide-ranging interview.
“They didn’t ask us for anything.”
No preference for US election
Putin was quoted as saying that Russia does not interfere in any elections and it will work with any leader the American people elect.
“We do not interfere in any way in any elections,” Putin told Russian state media in a wide-ranging interview. “And, as I have said many times, we will work with any leader who is trusted by the American people, the American voter.”
Putin said Donald Trump, when he was president, scolded him for “sympathizing” with now President Joe Biden.
“In the last year of his work as president, Mr. Trump, today’s presidential candidate, reproached me for sympathizing with Biden …. He asked me in one of the conversations: do you want Sleepy Joe to win?” Putin said.
“And then, to my surprise, they began to persecute him (Trump) because we allegedly supported him as a candidate. Well, it’s some kind of complete nonsense.”
Earlier, Putin said in February he would prefer Biden to Trump as US president, saying Biden was more experienced and more predictable.
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