© Sergey Bobylev/TASS
Russia will use its nuclear weapons only if faced with an existential threat, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 16.
Answering a question on his stance on using tactical, low-yield nuclear weapons as a deterrent, Putin stressed that his attitude about the idea of using such weapons was “negative” and pointed to Moscow’s nuclear doctrine.
“Nuclear weapons are created to ensure our security in its most broad sense and the very existence of the Russian state. But we, firstly, do not have such a need, and secondly, the very fact of discussing this topic already lowers the threshold for the use of [nuclear] weaponry,” he said, according to RT.
The Russian president added that Moscow will not engage in any nuclear disarmament talks with the West, given that reducing the country’s arsenal would put it at a disadvantage.
“We possess more weaponry of such sort than the NATO countries. They know that and are always trying to persuade us to start negotiations on reduction. Nuts to them, you know, as our people say,” the president said.
With regard to the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, Putin said that the entire batch will be deployed by the end of the year.
“As you know, we held talks with our union state, with President [of Belarus Alexander] Lukashenko on deploying part of these tactical weapons to Belarusian territory. It has happened – the first nuclear warheads have been delivered to Belarusian territory. This is the first batch. We will complete this work by the end of this year,” he said.
Putin said that that measure will serve as a deterrent “so that everyone who is thinking about hitting us strategically will not forget about this fact.”
Touching on the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the special military operation zone, Putin said that the Russian military destroyed 30% of Western armor supplied to Kiev forces and will keep wiping it out.
“It is not us who refuse to hold a dialogue with them [Western countries]: they have simply moved this dialogue to the sphere of arms deliveries. But we will torch all that they have supplied and will see what they will do next,” the Russian leader said, responding to questions at the forum. “Some 30% of supplied heavy armor has already been destroyed. I am not talking about Bradleys and Leopards alone. As many as 218 tanks, among them Leopards, and 418 armored vehicles, as I can remember, including Bradleys, are the total quantity. But there are no doubts that this process will continue.”
The Russian president added that Ukraine would have been better off taking “a different pathway and looking for peaceful means of resolving the dispute. But it has not come down to this so far and we see that they are trying to win a victory on the battlefield.”
“Let them try. We will see what will come out of their attempts. So far, they are failing and will hardly achieve anything,” he added.
Furthermore, Putin stressed that Russia always respond militarily to Ukrainian strikes on its territory. However, he noted that the retaliation is not always widely reported.
“We hit military targets with high-accuracy long-range and high-yield weapons and succeed in this respect. It’s enough to see arms depots, warehouses and barracks housing personnel, including foreign mercenaries destroyed … There always follows a retaliation. We just avoid presenting it as breaking news very often, but this retaliation is sensitive and the enemy knows this,” he said.
Kiev must understand that in case of continued attacks on Russian territory, Moscow will consider creating a “sanitary cordon” in Ukraine, the Russian president warned.
“If these attacks on our adjacent territories continue, we will consider creating a ‘sanitary cordon’ on Ukrainian territory. They just have to realize where they are heading for,” he said.
The SPIEF, which runs from June 14 to 17, is the largest annual economic and business event in Russia. The main topic of this year’s forum is “Sovereign Development as a Basis for a Just World: Joining Forces for Future Generations”.
Putin’s remarks show no shift in Russia’s stance on the conflict in Ukraine and the deteriorating relations with the West. Moscow is apparently still determined to achieve all the objectives of the special military operations militarily, or with diplomacy.
