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PUTIN'S INTERVIEW TO TASS

Russia laying groundwork so nobody dares fight against it, says Putin

Putin noted that as far as defense spending goes, Russia ranked seventh in the world

MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. Russia is not going to fight against anyone and it is laying the groundwork so that other countries, too, will not have the slightest urge to unleash an armed conflict with Moscow, President Vladimir Putin has said.

"We are not going to fight against anyone. We are going to create conditions so that nobody wants to fight against us," Putin told TASS in an interview for the project entitled "20 Questions with Vladimir Putin".

Putin recalled that as far as defense spending goes, Russia ranked seventh in the world, trailing the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and even Japan.

"Moreover, our annual expenditures are falling. In contrast, other countries’ [military] spending has been rising," he added.

He pointed to a unique situation where Russia was no longer lagging behind from the standpoint of its defense capabilities.

"For the first time, we have created such offensive strike systems which the world has never seen. Now they are chasing after us trying to catch up. This is a unique situation. This has never happened before," Putin emphasized.

He explained that in the first place he was referring to the newly-created hypersonic attack systems, including inter-continental ones.

Also, he recalled that back in 2000 the Russian army had a strength of 1.3 million, but now it was a little over 1 million and the share of top-notch operational equipment had soared to nearly 70% from 6%.

Episode 6 of the video interview is available at https://putin.tass.ru/en.

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