Vladimir Putin reveals nuclear war fears and warns of 'global catastrophe'

Vladimir Putin has revealed his nuclear war fears and warned of "global catastrophe" in his annual press conference.

The Russian president said "it is right not to underestimate the threat of nuclear war".

Putin said it was hard to predict what the consequences would be of a U.S. withdrawal from the landmark Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF], signed in 1987.

He said lowering the threshold for use of nuclear weapons could lead to global catastrophe and that he hopes "common sense will prevail".

On Wednesday, Russia said it would not let the US inspect a new nuclear-capable cruise missile at the heart of a dispute between Washington and Moscow that risks unravelling a landmark arms control treaty.

Washington has threatened to pull out of the INF treaty, alleging that the new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729 (called SSC-8 by NATO), violates the pact, which bans either side from stationing short and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Russia says the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty altogether and is not as long as Washington alleges, meaning that it is fully compliant with the INF. It has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty it wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles.

The United States issued Russia a 60-day ultimatum earlier this month to come clean about the alleged missile violation and return to “full and verifiable compliance.” That means Moscow is under pressure to scrap the new missile and its launchers.

However, Russia said on Wednesday it had no intention of letting U.S. inspectors look at the missile, which it said had not been tested at the longer range that Washington alleges.

“We don’t feel right now that such a step would be justified from either a political or a technical point of view,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with the Kommersant daily newspaper published on Wednesday.

Ryabkov accused Washington of “extremely intrusive” attempts to shine a light on Russian rocket manufacturing and said that Washington had in the past rebuffed Russian requests to look inside U.S. submarines under another arms control treaty.

Any such inspections - if they were to happen - should not be unilateral but should take place in both countries, he added.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said on Nov. 30 that Russia has already deployed multiple battalions of 9M729 missiles and that they posed a direct threat to most of Europe and parts of Asia.

Russian military experts asked their U.S. counterparts several days ago to hold consultations on the missile dispute, but had not yet received any response, Ryabkov said.

It comes after Putin flexed Russia's military might with a display of strength in case of potential nuclear attack earlier this month.

An anti-ballistic missile testing range in Sary Shagan, located in the northern Kazakhstani region of Karaganda, was the testing ground for the nuclear interceptor missile.

A video showing the new missile in action was released by the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

It it believed that the interceptor is the replacement of the 53T6 anti-ballistic missile system,which is part of a high-tech missile shield protecting the western Russian capital Moscow.

The anti-missile shield includes dozens of long-range and short-range interceptors, which are meant to stop incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) warheads.

During Thursday's press conference, Putin also said the fate of the captured Ukrainian sailors will be decided after their trial is over.