President Vladimir Putin of Russia took a less strident tone on the possibility of nuclear war in an interview released Wednesday, an apparent attempt to bolster his domestic image as a guarantor of stability before the Russian presidential election this weekend.
In a lengthy interview released by Russian state television, Putin struck a softer tone than in his state-of-the-nation address last month, when he said that the West risked causing the ¡°destruction of civilization¡± if it intervened more directly in Ukraine. In the interview, Putin described the United States as seeking to avoid such a conflict, even as he warned that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons if its ¡°sovereignty and independence¡± were threatened.
¡°I don¡¯t think that everything is rushing head-on here,¡± Putin said when asked whether Washington and Moscow were headed for a showdown. He added that even though the United States was modernizing its nuclear force, ¡°this doesn¡¯t mean, in my view, that they are ready to start this nuclear war tomorrow.¡±
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