- Putin says Russia is fighting for survival
- Putin says Russian people may not survive
- Putin says West is trying to dissolve Russia
- Russia should take NATO’s nuclear capacity into account
MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Portal) – President Vladimir Putin has described confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential struggle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people – and said he was forced to consider NATO’s nuclear capabilities.
A year after Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he is increasingly portraying the war as a pivotal moment in Russian history – and says he believes the future of Russia and its people is in jeopardy.
“They have one goal: to dissolve the former Soviet Union and its essential part – the Russian Federation,” Putin told state television Rossiya 1 in an interview recorded on Wednesday but released on Sunday.
NATO and the West reject such narratives, saying their goal is to help Ukraine defend itself against an unprovoked attack.
Putin said the West wants to partition Russia and then control the world’s largest commodity producer, a move that could very well lead to the destruction of many of Russia’s peoples, including the ethnic Russian majority.
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“I don’t even know if such an ethnic group as the Russian people can survive in the form in which it exists today,” Putin said. He said the West’s plans had been put on paper, but did not say where.
The United States has denied that it wants to destroy Russia, while President Joe Biden has warned that a conflict between Russia and NATO could trigger World War III, although he has also said Putin should not remain in power.
Putin said the tens of billions of dollars worth of US and European military aid to Ukraine show that Russia now faces NATO itself – the Cold War nightmare for both Soviet and Western leaders.
Ukraine says it will not rest until all Russian soldiers are expelled from Ukraine, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
RUSSIA
Putin’s existential design of war allows the 70-year-old Kremlin chief to arm the Russian people for a much deeper conflict, while also giving him far greater freedom in the types of weapons he might one day use.
Russia’s official nuclear doctrine permits the use of nuclear weapons when they – or other types of weapons of mass destruction – are used against them, or when conventional weapons are used that “endanger the very existence of the state.”
Putin has signaled that he is ready to tear up the nuclear arms control architecture – including the major powers’ moratorium on nuclear tests – unless the West backs down in Ukraine.
On Tuesday he tried to underscore Russia’s determination in Ukraine by suspending a landmark nuclear arms control treaty, announcing that new strategic systems were being deployed to combat duty and warning that Moscow could resume nuclear testing.
Putin said Russia would not resume discussion until French and British nuclear weapons were also considered.
Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads. It has more warheads than the United States, France, and Britain combined, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
“In today’s conditions, when all leading NATO countries have declared their main goal to inflict a strategic defeat on us so that our people suffer, as they say, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities under these conditions?” Putin said.
Putin said the greatest achievement of the past year was the unity of the Russian people.
Reporting to Portal, edited by Guy Faulconbridge and Tomasz Janowski
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