Yesterday, Russian news agency RIA asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if the Russian military was prepared for nuclear war. He said that “from a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” but that Russian-American interests would avoid the possibility of nuclear war through strategic restraint.

Putin said that Russia would treat the U.S. or other Western militaries deploying to Ukraine or Russia as an intervention escalating the war, but noted that the use of nuclear weapons has been unnecessary so far in the war in Ukraine, asking, “Why do we need to use weapons of mass destruction? There has never been such a need.”

However, Russia’s nuclear doctrine states nuclear weapons would be used in response to an attack by weapons of mass destruction or “when the very existence of the state is put under threat,” and Putin said that “weapons exist in order to use them,” emphasizing the strategy of mutual assured destruction.