Russia's Concept of National Security, decreed by Acting President Vladimir Putin on Monday and published in the weekly military magazine Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye on Friday, stated that Russia could use nuclear weapons to repel armed aggression if all other measures failed. The following are excerpts from the document:

Ensuring Russian Federation military security is a very important field of state activity. The main goal in this area is to ensure the possibility of a commensurate response to threats that may arise in the 21st Century, with rational expenditure on national defence.

In preventing war and armed conflicts, the Russian Federation prefers political, diplomatic, economic and other non-military means.

The national interests of the Russian Federation, however, require the presence of military power adequate for its defence ...

Deterrence

A vital task of the Russian Federation is to ensure deterrence, in the interests of preventing aggression on any scale, including the use of nuclear arms, against Russia and its allies.

The Russian Federation has to possess nuclear forces capable of ensuring on a guaranteed basis the infliction of the required damage on any aggressor state or coalition of states under any conditions ...

The Russian Federation considers the possibility of employing military force to safeguard its national security based on the following principles:

• The use of all forces and means at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in the event of a need to repel armed aggression, if all other measures for resolving the crisis situation have been exhausted and have proved ineffective

• The use of military force inside the country is allowed in strict conformity with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and with federal laws in the event of the emergence of a threat to the lives of citizens, to the country's territorial integrity, as well as a threat of a violent change in the constitutional system ...

The Russian Federation intends to ensure its national security decisively and firmly. The existing legal democratic institutions and structure of the state authorities, as well as the broad participation of political parties and public associations in implementing the Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation, are a guarantee of Russia's dynamic development in the 21st Century

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.