From warning on nuclear war to 'psychotropic drugs': Here are 5 things Putin told the Russian media

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given a wide-ranging interview to the Russian press a few days ahead of the presidential election, which will see Putin elected to another six years in power — short of a miraculous change in the immediate course of Russian politics.

In an interview with pro-Kremlin media published Tuesday, Putin laid out his vision for relations with the West, war and peace. Here are five comments he made ahead of the March 15-17 vote.

Putin was again keen to point out that Russia is ready for a nuclear war on a technical and military level.

"From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready ... [and] constantly in a state of combat readiness," Putin said in the interview with news channel Rossiya-1 and news agency RIA Novosti published Tuesday.

Putin cautioned that the possibility of a nuclear war was not a near-term prospect, with cool heads likely to prevail to prevent a "rushing" toward such a scenario. Nonetheless, Putin said Russia would be ready to conduct nuclear tests — if the U.S. did so.

Rossiya-1 journalist Dmitry Kiselev asked Putin what "price" Russia was ready to pay for the "challenge" it is facing during its "special military operation" in Ukraine. It's estimated that the war has cost Russia at least 315,000 dead and wounded troops during two years of war in Ukraine. It does not publish such figures itself.

In the interview Tuesday, excerpts of which were published extensively by RIA Novosti, Putin made a veiled acknowledgment of the human sacrifices in the war, but said that Russia had to protect its "citizens" in Ukraine, specifically in the four regions that Russia said it had annexed in September 2022.

"Look, every human life is priceless, every one. And the loss of a