Russia is developing new weapons to keep strategic balance and defend its security in the face of a collapse of the international arms deterrence system, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

"We will safeguard our security. We know how to do it. But in general, for humanity, this is very bad, because it brings us to a very dangerous point," Putin said at an annual press conference.

He recalled that after the withdrawal of the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, Russia was forced to respond with the creation of new weapons systems to overcome missile defense systems.

Now the United States has announced the withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with possible deployment of such missiles in Europe, to which Russia will have to respond, Putin said.

The fate of another non-proliferation treaty is under question, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires in 2021 and no negotiations have yet been conducted on its extension, he said.

Putin said that there is also a danger of application of low power nuclear charges, which may cause a global nuclear catastrophe leading to the "death of the entire civilization and, perhaps, of the planet."

"But I assume that humanity has enough common sense and a sense of self-preservation in order not to reach the extreme point," he said.