Putin Says Russia Won’t Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said that Moscow has no plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and warned the world is facing the most dangerous decade since World War II.

“We see no need for that,” Putin said of the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine in a speech at the Valdai Club, a Moscow-based think tank. “There is no point in that, neither political, nor military.”

Putin recently warned that Russia could use all the weapons at its disposal to defend its “territorial integrity,” and other Russian officials made clear that included nuclear weapons and applied to the territories Moscow recently annexed in Ukraine.

But there’s been no sign that Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons, and he said Thursday that Russia’s recent talk of nuclear weapons was a reaction to remarks from Western officials.