Russian President Vladimir Putin hurled his favorite N-word at the U.S. Wednesday as he warned of limits on how much the U.S. could support Ukraine without punishment.
Putin was interviewed by Russian news agencies as he prepared for the elections to be held from Friday to Sunday that are expected to give him another six-year term in power.
“From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” Putin said in response to a question about whether Russia was ready for nuclear war, according to Reuters.
Putin said America knows that U.S. boots on Ukrainian soil would be treated as an intervention, but he does not expect that to happen.
“Apart from [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, according to CNN.
Putin and Russian officials have regularly reminded the world since the start of the Ukraine invasion that Russia has nuclear weapons and will use them if sufficiently irritated.
Putin noted that Russian military doctrine spells out when nuclear weapons can be used — either in response to a nuclear attack or if the existence of Russia is threatened.
“Weapons exist in order to use them,” Putin said in the interview, Reuters noted. “We have our own principles.”
Putin said Russia is ready for talks on Ukraine if there is something substantive to discuss.
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“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.
Putin said if a deal was reached, Russia would need assurances it would be observed.
In the interview, Putin said based on Russia’s assessment of U.S. readiness, America is not ready to “launch a nuclear war tomorrow,” CNN reported.
“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.
Putin talked of nuclear weapons last month as well after French President Emmanuel Macron said the potential of Western troops in Ukraine should not be ruled out, according to CNN.
“Everything that they are coming up with now, with which they threaten the entire world — all this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization — don’t they understand this, or what?” Putin said, speaking of Western nations.
“They must ultimately understand that we also have weapons — and they know about it, just as I now said — we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory,” he said then.
In this week’s interview, Putin said recent drone strikes within Russia orchestrated by Ukraine have the goal of “frustrating the elections in Russia” or “interfering with them,” according to Newsweek
“Another goal is to get some kind of trump card in a possible negotiation process,” he said.
On Wednesday, Russian foreign ministry representative Maria Zakharova said the U.S. is interfering in the elections by planning a cyberattack on Russia’s voting systems and trying to impede voter turnout, according to The Guardian.
