Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow could adopt what he described as a U.S. concept of using preemptive military strikes, noting it has the weapons to do the job, in a blunt statement amid rising Russia-NATO tensions over Ukraine.
"We are just thinking about it. They weren't shy to openly talk about it during the past years," Putin said, referring to the U.S. policy, as he attended a summit in Kyrgyzstan of a Moscow-dominated economic alliance of ex-Soviet nations.
While Putin appeared to refer to conventional precision-guided weapons when he talked about possibly mimicking the U.S. strategy, he specifically noted that the U.S. hasn't ruled out the first use of nuclear weapons. The official noted that Russian military doctrine has long stated that Moscow reserves the right to first use of a nuclear weapon in response to large scale military aggression.
Putin was asked Wednesday at a Kremlin conference whether Russia could commit to forswearing a first strike and responded that such an obligation might prevent Russia from tapping its nuclear arsenal even if it came under a nuclear attack. "When the early warning system receives a signal about a missile attack, we launch hundreds of missiles that are impossible to stop," he said, smiling. "Enemy missile warheads would inevitably reach the territory of the Russian Federation. But nothing would be left of the enemy too, because it's impossible to intercept hundreds of missiles. And this, of course, is a factor of deterrence.
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