President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday lauded Moscow’s nuclear arsenal and warned that he was ready to employ the weapons if Russia’s sovereignty was threatened.
In an interview with Russian propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov on March 12, the Kremlin Chief said that if the US military were to enter Ukraine, Russia would “treat them as interventionists.”
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The Kremlin has touted its nuclear prowess throughout its two-year full-scale offensive in Ukraine, last month warning Western countries there was a “real” risk of nuclear catastrophe if they escalated the conflict.
“Our triad, the nuclear triad, it is more modern than any other triad. Only we and the Americans actually have such triads. And we have advanced much more here,” Putin said in a wide-ranging interview with state media.
The term Nuclear triad refers to a nation’s ability to employ nuclear warheads using three different methods of delivery, which includes land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and ground launched shorter range theater-level weapons, airborne bombers with human aircrew members on board, and ballistic missiles launched by submerged submarines.
A simplified description for the layperson is that it is a three-pronged arsenal of weapons launched from land, air and sea. Such triad-based nuclear weapons doctrines were originally meant to deter all nations from using any of these weapons, because if one leg of the triad failed the others would likely succeed, ensuring the other nuclear powers would never deliver a first strike or be destroyed.
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Such doctrines were adopted by the US, USSR, and nuclear-armed European nations with the implication that any first strike with a nuclear weapon could trigger a very quick globally disaster that would bring about mutually assured destruction, or MAD. The concept was designed to make it so no sane leader, only an insane or mad person would risk such catastrophe of their own nation.
“We are ready to use weapons, including any weapons – including the weapons you mentioned – if it is a question of the existence of the Russian state or damage to our sovereignty and independence,” Putin added in the interview, which aired on Wednesday.
Putin’s latest comments come just days ahead of elections in Russia that are all but guaranteed to hand him another six years in power and as his military posts gains in Ukraine.
The Russian president believes that the United States is actively developing its nuclear forces and increasing their sophistication. At the same time, he says he hopes that America is “hardly ready to start a nuclear war tomorrow.”
Earlier, CNN published information that at the end of 2022, the Russian authorities were considering the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine after the successful actions of the Ukrainian military in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
However, Putin claimed that he was ready to use nuclear weapons only under certain conditions.
“We have our principles. What they say is that we are ready to use weapons, including any weapon, including the one you mentioned, if it comes to the existence of the Russian state, harm to our sovereignty and independence. Everything is spelled out in our strategy, we have not changed it,” Putin said.
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