Speaking at a policy forum on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin doubled-down on a warning to Russia’s geopolitical foes first made earlier this year when he declared that Russia would only use its “unstoppable” nuclear weapons in response to an incoming missile attack.

While Russia would undertake a preemptive nuclear strike, Putin said Russia wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate if its warning systems spot incoming missiles, even if it would mean the mutually assured destruction of both parties, as ABC News reported. Any “aggressor should know that retaliation is inevitable, and that it will be destroyed” Putin said.

At least Russia can be secure in the knowledge that its citizens “will go to heaven” because they would be on the defensive. Meanwhile, its aggressors would meet a much less desirable fate in the afterlife.

“When we see a coming strike on the territory of Russia, we will retaliate.” He acknowledged it will mean a global catastrophe, but emphasized that “we can’t be those who initiated it.”

“We are victims of aggression, we as martyrs will go to heaven. And they’ll just die. Because you can’t even repent.”

Putin also claimed that ISIS had taken 700 hostages in Syria, some of whom were European and US citizens. And while their governments do nothing, the hostages are being killed off at a rate of 10 a day.

During a speech earlier this year, Putin unveiled a bevy of new weapons, including nuclear subs equipped with hypersonic missiles that could evade NATO ABM defenses, that he said will be ready in the coming years, as other Russian officials have warned that the US’s aggressive sanctions and abusive policies toward Russia had succeeded in instigating a revival of the Cold War-era “arms race.” 

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