Kremlin official: Russia will only use nuclear arms if existence threatened

• "PBS Newshour" journalist Ryan Chilcote noted to Peskov in their interview that former President Dmitry Medvedev said this week that Russia "reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if it faces an existential threat, even if the other side has not employed nuclear weapons."

What they're saying: "Any outcome of the operation, of course, is not a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon," said Peskov, sticking to the Kremlin's description of the invasion as an "operation."

• "We have a security concept that very clearly states that only when there is a threat for existence of the state, in our country, we can use and we will actually use nuclear weapons to eliminate the threat for the existence of our country," he continued.
• "Let's keep these two things separate, I mean, existence of the state and special military operation in Ukraine. They have nothing to do with each other."

Go deeper: Axios explains Ukraine