MOSCOW, March 13 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin told the West on Wednesday that Russia was technically ready for nuclear war and that if the U.S. sent troops to Ukraine, it would be considered a significant escalation of the conflict.
Putin, speaking ahead of a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him another six years in power, added that the nuclear war scenario was not "rushing" up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons.
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Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons if there is a threat to the existence of the Russian state but “there has never been such a need." ...(CNN)
Putin said that from a military and technical standpoint, Russia is ready for a nuclear war, though he didn’t say one was imminent.
He warned that if US troops were deployed to Ukraine, Russia would treat them as interventionists.
“Apart from (US President Joe) Biden, there are enough other experts in the sphere of Russian-American relations and strategic restraint. So I don’t think that everything is going to go head-on here, but we are ready for it,” Putin said.
Putin said the United States is also developing nuclear forces but that doesn’t mean they are ready to “launch a nuclear war tomorrow.”
“They are now setting tasks to increase this modernity, innovation, they have a corresponding plan. We know about it too. They are developing all their components. So are we,” Putin said.
“Weapons exist in order to use them. We have our own principles.”
Russia is also expanding and modernizing the systems it has for delivering nuclear weapons, the intelligence community report stated, “because Moscow believes such systems offer options to deter adversaries, control the escalation of potential hostilities, and counter US and Allied conventional forces.” [Those are Russia's principles.]
These include long-range nuclear-capable missiles and underwater delivery systems meant to penetrate or bypass US missile defenses, according to the report [by] the [U.S.] intelligence community...in its annual unclassified threat assessment, released on Monday.
