Russia is working on new nuclear missile systems that other powers do not have in order to protect itself against future security threats, President Vladimir Putin said on today.
Mr Putin, speaking to armed forces chiefs, said although international terrorism was one of Russia's main security threats the country had also to keep its nuclear defences in sound condition.
"We know that we have only to weaken our attention to such components of our defences as the nuclear-missile shield, and new threats to us could appear," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
He said research and successful testing of new nuclear-missile systems technology was being conducted. "I am sure that in the near future weapons will appear ... which other nuclear powers do not and will not possess."
But leading Russian military analyst Mr Alexander Golts said Mr Putin's remarks were more likely to be an attempt to shore up the country's international standing than an announcement of any developments in its nuclear arsenal.
"It's more or less a tradition that the Russian leadership prefers to speak about our nuclear capacity, because after all it's the last attribute of a superpower," he said.
"Our nuclear armament is the single thing that makes us more or less equal to the United States and it's very important from a political point of view for Mr Putin to keep mentioning it."
More than half of Russia's defence budget goes on nuclear programmes, he said.
Mr Putin gave no further detail about what type of weapons he was referring to or what shape new security threats could take.
"We will continue to consistently and successively build up the armed forces in general and its nuclear component," he said.
Russia's latest nuclear innovation was a test launch in February of a missile designed to outwit Washington's planned $50 billion missile shield.
"It flies as a ballistic missile warhead in space, but when it penetrates the atmosphere it begins flying like a cruise missile," Mr Golts said.
He said it made the American anti-missile plans more or less useless. "And it means that we still think about the United States as a potential adversary," Mr Golts added.
US State Department spokesman Mr Adam Ereli told reporters Washington did not regard Moscow's activities as threatening or as any violation of its arms control agreements with the United States.
"We do not perceive Russia's nuclear sustainment and modernization activities as threatening and what they are doing is fully consistent with our mutual obligations under the Moscow Treaty," Mr Ereli told reporters in Washington.