Russian President Vladimir Putin solid the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine struggle as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian individuals — and stated he was compelled to bear in mind NATO’s nuclear capabilities.

A 12 months since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is more and more presenting the struggle as a make-or-break second in Russian historical past — and saying that he believes the very way forward for Russia and its individuals is in peril.

“They’ve one purpose: to disband the previous Soviet Union and its elementary half — the Russian Federation,” Putin informed Rossiya 1 state tv in an interview recorded on Wednesday however launched on Sunday.

NATO and the West dismiss such a story, saying their goal is to assist Ukraine defend itself in opposition to an unprovoked assault.

Putin stated the West needed to divide up Russia after which management the world’s greatest producer of uncooked supplies, a step, he stated, that would nicely result in the destruction of most of the peoples of Russia together with the ethnic Russian majority.

“I don’t even know if such an ethnic group because the Russian individuals will have the ability to survive within the kind through which it exists right now,” Putin stated. He stated the West’s plans had been put to paper, although didn’t specify the place.

The US has denied that it needs to destroy Russia, whereas President Joe Biden has warned {that a} battle between Russia and NATO may set off World Conflict Three, although he has additionally stated Putin shouldn’t stay in energy.

Putin stated the tens of billions of {dollars} value of U.S. and European army help to Ukraine confirmed that Russia was now going through off in opposition to NATO itself — the Chilly Conflict nightmare of each Soviet and Western leaders.

Ukraine says it is not going to relaxation till each final Russian soldier is ejected from Ukraine, together with from Crimea which Russia annexed in 2014.

Putin’s existential framing of the struggle permits the 70-year-old Kremlin chief to gird the Russian individuals for a a lot deeper battle whereas it additionally permits him a lot better freedom within the forms of weapons he may in the future use.

Russia’s official nuclear doctrine permits for using nuclear weapons in the event that they — or different forms of weapons of mass destruction — are used in opposition to it, or if typical weapons are used, which endanger “the very existence of the state.”

Putin has signaled he is able to rip up the structure of nuclear arms management – together with the massive powers’ moratorium on nuclear testing — until the West backs off in Ukraine.

On Tuesday, he sought to underscore Russian resolve in Ukraine by suspending a landmark nuclear arms management treaty, saying new strategic methods had been placed on fight obligation and warning that Moscow may resume nuclear checks.

Putin stated Russia would solely resume dialogue as soon as French and British nuclear weapons had been additionally taken into consideration.

Russia, which inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons, has the world’s greatest retailer of nuclear warheads. It has extra warheads than america, France and Britain mixed, in accordance with the Federation of American Scientists.

“In right now’s situations, when all of the main NATO nations have declared their major purpose as inflicting a strategic defeat on us in order that our individuals undergo as they are saying, how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these situations?” Putin stated.

Putin stated the largest results of the previous 12 months was the unity of the Russian individuals.