Putin warns the West: Russia is ready for nuclear war
Item 1 of 2 Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview in Moscow, March 12, 2024. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS
[1/2]Vladimir Putin speaks during an interview in Moscow, March 12, 2024. Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights - Russia is ready for nuclear war - Putin
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MOSCOW,
March 13 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin warned the West on
Wednesday 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
just days before a March 15-17 election which is certain to give him
another six years in power, said the nuclear war scenario was not
"rushing" up and he saw no need for the use of nuclear weapons in
Ukraine.
"From
a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready," Putin,
71, told Rossiya-1 television and news agency RIA in response to a
question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war.
Putin
said the U.S. understood that if it deployed American troops on Russian
territory - or to Ukraine - Russia would treat the move as an
intervention.
"(In
the U.S.) there are enough specialists in the field of Russian-American
relations and in the field of strategic restraint," said Putin, the
ultimate decision maker in the world's biggest nuclear power.
"Therefore, I don't think that here everything is rushing to it (nuclear confrontation), but we are ready for this."
Putin's
nuclear warning came alongside another offer for talks on Ukraine as
part of a new post-Cold War demarcation of European security. The U.S.
says Putin is not ready for serious talks over Ukraine.
The
war in Ukraine has triggered the deepest crisis in Russia's relations
with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and Putin has warned
several times the West risks provoking a nuclear war if it sends troops
to fight in Ukraine.
Putin
sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022,
triggering full-scale war after eight years of conflict in eastern
Ukraine between Ukrainian forces on one side and pro-Russian Ukrainians
and Russian proxies on the other.
NUCLEAR WAR?
In
a U.S. election year, the West is grappling with how to support Kyiv
against Russia, which now controls almost one-fifth of Ukrainian
territory and is rearming much faster than the West and Ukraine.
Kyiv
says it is defending itself against an imperial-style war of conquest
designed to erase its national identity. Russia says the areas it
controls in Ukraine are now Russia.
Putin
has sent a series of public nuclear warnings to the U.S. aimed at
discouraging greater involvement in Ukraine - a move the Kremlin says
would mark a slide into world war.
Washington
says it has seen no major changes to Russia's nuclear posture but
Putin's public nuclear warnings - which break with the extreme caution
of the Soviet leadership over such remarks - have sown concern in
Washington.
Putin reiterated the use of nuclear weapons was spelled out in the Kremlin's
nuclear doctrine,
which sets out the conditions under which it would use such a weapon:
broadly a response to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass
destruction, or the use of conventional weapons against Russia "when the
very existence of the state is put under threat."
"Weapons exist in order to use them," Putin said. "We have our own principles."
CNN
reported on Saturday the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden was
specifically concerned in 2022 that Russia might use a tactical or
battlefield nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
Putin said he had never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
TALKS?
Putin said Russia was ready for serious talks on Ukraine.
"Russia
is ready for negotiations on Ukraine, but they should be based on
reality - and not on cravings after the use of psychotropic drugs,"
Putin said.
Reuters reported last month that
Putin's suggestion of a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the U.S. after contacts between intermediaries.
U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned earlier this
week that if the West did not provide proper support for Ukraine, Kyiv
would lose more territory to Russia which would embolden Chinese
President Xi Jinping.
Burns,
a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told the Senate Intelligence
Committee it was in U.S. interests to support Ukraine to allow it to get
into a stronger position before talks.
Putin said he trusted no one and Russia would need written security guarantees in the event of a settlement.
"I
don't trust anyone, but we need guarantees, and guarantees must be
spelled out, they must be such that we would be satisfied," Putin said.
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Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Lincoln Feast.