Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s deterrent weapons to be put on special alert. Putin gave the order on Sunday in a video distributed by the Kremlin. He referred to “deterrent weapons,” but did not explicitly name nuclear weapons. “The top leaders of the leading NATO countries are allowing aggressive statements against our country, so I order the defence minister and the chief of the general staff to put the forces of deterrence of the Russian army on a special regime of alert,” he said.