Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the world was living through a dangerous moment and that it was essential to ensure that weapons of mass destruction would never be used.
Locked in a war in Ukraine which Putin said Russia had no choice to launch to safeguard its own security, the Kremlin chief warned that cycles of escalation in international conflict could quickly lead to dangerous scenarios.
"We must realize that the moment when nothing can be changed any longer may come very quickly and unexpectedly for everyone. The logic of escalating, increasingly harsh retaliatory measures leads to a fatal point of no return," Putin told the Valdai Forum of international Russia experts in Moscow.
"At the heart of this escalation lie arrogance and overconfidence. This is a path to the brink of the abyss. All the more so today, when the arsenals of the world’s leading powers contain weapons capable of destroying all life or, at thevery least, reducing the Earth to a catastrophic state. Can we be certain that these weapons will never be used? Well, of course not. We must bear this in mind and avoid such an outcome."
He also said that Western companies could get their Russian assets back if "a favorable scenario" came to pass.
He was referring to the Russian state's decision to place a slew of European companies under what Moscow has called temporary external administration.
"We have not nationalized anything from anyone. Yes, we are placing certain enterprises under external administration. But in some European countries, they have simply, in a blatant breach of every conceivable and inconceivable rule, seized huge enterprises from us — for example, in the Federal Republic of Germany," said Putin.
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