Putin says risks of nuclear war are on the rise

President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the risk of a nuclear war was rising, but insisted Russia had not "gone mad" and that it saw its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent.

Neverthless, Putin said Russia would defend its territory and its allies "with all available means", adding that it was the United States, not Russia, that had deployed so-called "tactical" nuclear weapons in other countries.