Putin Ally Makes Ominous Nuclear Threat

Russia's former president and prime minister issued an ominous nuclear threat on Thursday.

Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, warned in a post on his Telegram channel that should Ukraine attack missile launch sites on Russian soil using long-range missiles provided by the West, Moscow could respond with a nuclear strike.

The former Russian president has warned on multiple occasions that a nuclear war could break out amid the conflict in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in September 2022 that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend its "territorial integrity" and the topic is still regularly discussed on Russian state TV.

Attacks by Ukraine risk infringing paragraph 19 of Russia's 2020 nuclear doctrine, Medvedev said, adding that all those who support Kyiv "should remember this."

The paragraph states that Russia could use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack using nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, or to the use of conventional weapons against Russia "when the very existence of the state is put under threat," Reuters reported.

"This is not a right to self-defense, but a direct and obvious basis for our use of nuclear weapons against such a state," wrote Medvedev.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

It's not the first time Medvedev has insinuated that Russia could attack NATO members for providing Ukraine with assistance. He said in December 2022 that such countries could be "legitimate military targets."

"Today…the main question is whether the hybrid de facto war declared on our country by NATO can be considered to be the alliance's entry into war with Russia? Is it possible to view the delivery of a large volume of weapons to Ukraine as an attack on Russia?" he wrote on Telegram at the time.

"The leaders of NATO countries keep unanimously squawking that their countries and the entire bloc are not at war with Russia," Medvedev continued. "Yet, everyone is well aware that this is not the case."

He noted that in light of this, the question arises whether NATO allies are legitimate military targets.

According to "the named rules of war," he said, the armed forces of other countries "that have officially entered the war, which are allies of the enemy country, and the objects located on their territory," are considered legitimate military targets.

Attacks on Russia's airbases ramped up in the fall of 2023. One such attack last August destroyed four Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft stationed at an airfield in the western city of Pskov, near to Russia's borders with Estonia, Latvia and Belarus, according to Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence agency. It didn't claim responsibility, in line with Kyiv's policy of distancing itself from attacks on Russian soil.

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