Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday that Russia is technically ready for nuclear war and that sending U.S. troops to Ukraine would be seen as a major escalation in the war.
Putin spoke just days before the March 15-17 election that is sure to keep him in power for another six years. He said that the nuclear war scenario was not “hasty” and he believed that there was no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“From a military-technical point of view, of course we are ready,” Putin, 71, told Rossiya-1 television and the RIA news agency in response to a question about whether Russia was indeed ready for a nuclear war.
Putin said the United States understood that if U.S. troops were deployed on Russian soil or in Ukraine, Russia would view the move as interference.
“(The United States) has enough experts in the field of Russian-American relations and strategic restraint,” Putin said.
“So I don’t think everything is rushing into (a nuclear confrontation), but we are ready for it.”
The war in Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Putin has repeatedly warned that the West will face the risk of triggering a nuclear war if it sends troops to Ukraine.
Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022, triggering an all-out war in eastern Ukraine after eight years of conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian Ukrainians and Russian proxies.
Western leaders promised to defeat Russia in Ukraine, but after two years of war, Russian forces control just under a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
In a U.S. election year, the West is grappling with how to support Kiev against Russia, which already has hundreds of thousands of troops and is rearming much faster than the West.
Kyiv says it is defending against an imperial-style war of conquest aimed at erasing its national identity. Russia says areas it controls in Ukraine now belong to it.
nuclear war?
Putin, the ultimate decision-maker on Russia’s nuclear weapons issue, reiterated that the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine and policy stipulates the circumstances under which Russia may use nuclear weapons and elaborated on their use.
“Weapons exist to use them,” Putin said. “We have our own principles.”
Russia and the United States are by far the largest nuclear powers, controlling more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
Putin said Russia was ready for serious negotiations on Ukraine.
“Russia is ready to negotiate on Ukraine, but the negotiations should be based on reality and not on cravings after the use of psychotropic drugs,” Putin said.
Reuters reported last month that Putin’s proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States after being approached by intermediaries.
He added in the wide-ranging interview that if the United States conducts a nuclear test, Russia may do the same.
“There’s no need… we still have to think about it but I wouldn’t rule out that we could do that as well.”
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is particularly concerned about Russia’s potential use of tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons in Ukraine in 2022, CNN reported on Saturday.
CNN said that U.S. intelligence agencies have received information showing communications between Russian officials explicitly discussing a nuclear strike in 2022.
However, Putin said that Russia has never had to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, where the conflict has been raging since February 2022.
“Why do we need to use weapons of mass destruction? There has never been a need.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
