Russia's security strategy envisages 'forceful methods'

A top Kremlin official says that a revised version of Russia’s national security strategy says that it may use forceful methods to respond to unfriendly actions by foreign countries

MOSCOW -- A revised version of Russia's national security strategy says that it may use forceful methods to respond to unfriendly actions by foreign countries, a top Kremlin official said in remarks published Monday, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the presidential Security Council, said that the document foresees that Moscow could take “symmetric and asymmetric measures to thwart or avert unfriendly actions that threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.” In an interview published Monday by the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta that those “primarily will be special economic measures, but also coercive forceful methods if necessary." Patrushev said that in comparison with the previous version of the strategy that was published in December 2015, the revised version of the document also emphasized information security as one of the top priorities.