New warnings Putin: “The risk of nuclear war is increasing but Russia has not ‘gone mad'”

The risk of nuclear war is growing but Russia “has not gone mad” and still sees its nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive, deterrent, Russian President Vladimir Putin said via video link at the annual televised meeting of the Human Rights Council.

However, Putin added that Russia will defend its territory and its allies “with all available means”.

“We have advanced weapons systems but we don’t want to show them off,” he said, insisting it was not Moscow that talked about using nuclear weapons.

“Unlike the US, we have not deployed any other country’s tactical nuclear weapons yet,” he added.

“That’s what we’re dealing with,” he continued. “There can be only one response from our side – a continuous struggle for our national interests. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. And don’t count on anything else.”

“Yes, we will do it in various ways and means. Of course, first of all we will focus on peaceful means but if nothing else remains we will defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal”, he continued.

Putin also reiterated his longstanding position that Russia had no choice but to intervene militarily in Ukraine. “We didn’t start the war, it started in 2014 after the coup,” when Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted after weeks of popular protests, he said.

He also accused Poland of wanting to seize territory in western Ukraine and said Russia could be the sole guarantor of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. “But that depends on the new leaders of Ukraine,” he added.

Putin also complained that Western human rights organizations consider Russia a “second-class country that has no right to exist.”

Putin was responding to comments by a council member who said Ukrainian forces were shelling residential areas in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region.

Referring to conscription denied rumors that a second one was being planned, after that of September. The Russian president said there is no need to call up more reservists to fight in Ukraine at this time. Of the 300,000 Russians drafted in in September, 150,000 were deployed in the zone where what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Of those, 77,000 have joined combat units while the rest have taken up defense duties, he said, without elaborating further.

Putin also warned that this “special military operation” in Ukraine could turn out to be a “long process”.

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