During the discussion period of the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin was asked how he views the use of nuclear weapons. “No,” he answered unequivocally. “This use of nuclear weapons is certainly theoretically possible. For Russia, this is possible if a threat is created to our territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, the existence of the Russian state. Nuclear weapons are created in order to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state.
“But we, firstly, do not have such a need, and secondly, the very factor of reasoning on this topic already lowers the possibility of lowering the threshold for the use of weapons. This is the first part.
“The second is that we have more such weapons than the NATO countries. They know about it and all the time they persuade us to start talks on reductions. Fuck them, you know? As our people say. (Laughter) Because, in the clumsy terms of economics, this is our competitive advantage.”