Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told PBS in an interview on Monday that Russia would resort to nuclear weapons only in the case of a "threat to the existence" of his country - and not as a result of the current conflict with Ukraine.
"But any outcome of the operation (in Ukraine), of course is not a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon," Peskov 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 for the existence of our country."