Putin: “Why would we want a world without Russia?”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a man who clearly looks after the needs of his country. In the manner that has become newly popularized in the US by its own President Trump, perhaps Putin was the prototype of the new nationalism that puts one’s own country as the first and most important concern.

On March 7th, Mr. Putin reiterated that Russia has a policy to never strike first with nuclear weapons. The presently held policy of the Russian Federation is to not use nuclear weapons unless a nuclear weapon is inbound against Russia or one of its allies, or if there was a conventional weapons-based attack that was capable of destroying the whole country. As stated in RT.com’s piece on this, Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is not meant to be used, because using them creates a global disaster that would destroy Russia, too.

He went on to explain this policy in an interview:

A decision on the use of nuclear weapons may only be taken if our ballistic missile attack warning system not only detects a launch, but also predicts that the warheads would hit Russian territory. This is called a retaliation strike… If somebody decides to destroy Russia, we are justified in such a response.

Of course, there is a little chance for a bit of humor and an expression of national pride too, in this interview:

Certainly it would be a global disaster for humanity; a disaster for the entire world. But as a citizen of Russia and the head of the Russian state I must ask myself: Why would we want a world without Russia?”

These statements are part of a new documentary has been completed by the journalist Vladimir Solovyev, in which the Russian president talks about his view of his nation’s place in the world. At present there is no news of the documentary’s release, but we await it.