The president of Russia has long reminded the world of his country’s nuclear stockpile (Picture: Getty/AP)
Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is ready to resort to nuclear weapons if there is a threat.
In a chilling interview with state-owned television yesterday at the Kremlin, he said Moscow’s doctrine allows for the use of nuclear attacks if there is a perceived danger to the country’s statehood, sovereignty or independence.
‘From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,’ the Russian president told TV presenter Dmitry Kiselev for RIA Novosti.
‘They [nuclear missiles] are constantly in a state of combat readiness.’
He stressed, however, that he has never felt a need to use nuclear arms in his war against Ukraine.
Asked by Kiselev if such a thought ever occurred to him, he simply replied: ‘No, but why?’
Putin made the remarks in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov at the Kremlin in Moscow (Picture: AFP)
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Police stand in front of an apartment building damaged by a Russian missile strike in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine (Picture: Reuters)
Putin added: ‘We have our own principles. What they are talking about is that we are ready to use weapons, including any weapons, including the ones you mentioned, if we are talking about the existence of the Russian state, harming our sovereignty and independence.
‘We have everything written down in our strategy, we haven’t changed it.’
The president added that the US also has nuclear weapons to hand – about 5,400 – but that doesn’t mean it’s going to launch a nuclear war anytime soon.
But if the US stages nuclear drills, Russia will follow.
‘“[The possibility of conducting US nuclear tests] is due to the fact that when new warheads appear, as some experts believe, it is not enough to test them only on a computer, they need to be tested in their natural form,’ he said.
‘These are the ideas in certain circles in the United States, they are floating around and they have a place to be. We know about this. And we are watching too.’
Russia has staged several nuclear strike dills – such as for a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile – in recent years (Picture: AP)
Putin said he has no intention to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine (Picture: Reuters)
Doctrine states the Kremlin only has four reasons it would launch a nuclear attack (Picture: Reuters)
In 2020, the Kremlin issued an executive order saying it had four reasons why it would ever resort to nuclear weapons, including as a pre-emptive strike or in response to a nuclear strike against it.
The only other two reasons for long-range nukes would be responding to a threat that would limit its control over its nuclear arms, such as a cyberattack, or when the ‘existence’ of Russia itself is threatened, the order said.
Analysts disagree over whether Putin would ever press the button. The Heritage Foundation, a US think-tank, said last year that Putin’s ‘martyr complex’ could push him either way as his dreams of victory in the Russia-Ukraine ‘collapse’.
Others have a far simpler reason for him never using nukes against Ukraine: the wind. A gust could blow radiation right over the border and into Russia.
Russia has nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads, the largest stockpile in the world, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
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