Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Russia has no plans to use nuclear weapons in the war against Ukraine.
"No one is thinking about using ... even about [the] idea of using a nuclear weapon," Peskov said in an interview with US public broadcaster PBS on Monday.
"We have no doubt that all the objectives of our special military operation in Ukraine will be completed. We have no doubt about that," Peskov said.
"But any outcome of the operation, of course, is not a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon," he said.
"We have a security concept that very clearly states that only when there is a threat for existence of the state in our country, we can use and we will actually use nuclear weapons to eliminate the threat," he explained.
"Let's keep these two things separate, I mean, existence of the state and [the] special military operation in Ukraine. They have nothing to do with each other," Peskov added.
Concerns grew in the West when President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian nuclear forces to be put on alert at the start of the armed attack on Ukraine and warned that countries that intervened in the conflict would have to reckon with consequences "like they have never experienced before."
