Vladimir Putin raised the fear worldwide over the weekend when he put out a nuclear warning as tensions rose with the western world.
The Russian leader is said to be "furious" with how the invasion of Ukraine is going and could retaliate to all the sanctions being thrust upon the country by the EU, UK and US.
But in a resurfaced comment from a 2018 documentary, Putin's intentions and mindset have been made very clear.
The Russian head of state said: "if someone decides to annihilate Russia, we have the legal right to respond. Yes, it will be a catastrophe for humanity and for the world. But I'm a citizen of Russia and its head of state. Why do we need a world without Russia in it?"
On Sunday, Putin told state TV that NATO powers have made "aggressive statements" along with the West imposing hard-hitting financial sanctions against Russia, including the president himself.
He ordered the Russian defence minister and the chief of the military's General Staff to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a "special regime of combat duty".
The US Ambassador to the United Nations says Putin's order shows the Russian leader is "escalating conflict in a manner that is unacceptable".
Linda Thomas-Greenfield said: "It means that President Putin is continuing to escalate this war in a manner that is totally unacceptable. "We have to continue to stem his actions in the strongest possible way."
It comes as human rights groups and Ukraine's ambassador to the United States on Monday accused Russia of attacking Ukrainians with the weapons that have been condemned by a variety of international organizations.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both said that Russian forces appeared to have used widely banned cluster munitions, with Amnesty accusing them of attacking a preschool in northeastern Ukraine while civilians took shelter inside.
Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, told reporters after meeting with members of the US Congress that Russia had used a thermobaric weapon, known as a vacuum bomb, in its invasion of her country.
"They used the vacuum bomb today," Markarova said after a meeting with lawmakers. "...The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large."
