MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on March 13 that Russia does not interfere in any elections, and it will work with any leader the American people elect.

“We do not interfere in any way in any elections,” Mr Putin told Russian state media in a wide-ranging interview. “And, as I have said many times, we will work with any leader who is trusted by the American people, the American voter.”

The war in Ukraine and US assertions that Russia plans to put a nuclear weapon in space have led to the biggest crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

In an interview with RIA state news agency and Rossiya-1 state television, Mr Putin said Russia would be ready to use nuclear weapons if its sovereignty was threatened.

“From a military-technical point of view, we are, of course, ready,” he said in response to a question whether the country was really ready for a nuclear war.

Mr Putin, Russia’s ultimate decision-maker on nuclear weapons, reiterated that the use of nuclear weapons was spelt out in the Kremlin’s nuclear doctrine, its policy setting out the circumstances in which Russia might use its weapons.

“Weapons exist in order to use them,” Mr Putin said. “We have our own principles.”

Russia and the United States are by far the largest nuclear powers, controlling more than 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The Russian leader launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is nearly certain to win the March 15 to 17 presidential election.

Mr Putin said Donald Trump, when he was US president, scolded him for “sympathising” with current President Joe Biden.

“In the last year of his work as president, Mr Trump, today’s presidential candidate, reproached me for sympathising with Biden... He asked me in one of the conversations: do you want Sleepy Joe to win?” Mr Putin said.

“And then, to my surprise, they began to persecute him (Trump) because we allegedly supported him as a candidate. Well, it’s some kind of complete nonsense.”

Mr Putin said in February that he would prefer Mr Biden to Trump as US president, saying Mr Biden was more experienced and more predictable. REUTERS