A key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a nuclear-response warning to the West as tensions between Moscow and NATO allies rise.
Former Russian Prime Minister and President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, made false claims that Ukraine is creating a “dirty bomb” to attack Russia.
He said: “Considering the seemingly meaningless chatter around the creation of nuclear weapons by…Ukraine, one can only make one sad conclusion: The Nazi regime is trying to create a ‘dirty bomb.’ It has all the resources to do this: raw materials, technology, specialists.
“And any Soviet-era laboratory will do for making a low-power charge. The clock is ticking.”
The intervention from Medvedev comes as Ukraine continues to urge Western allies to life restrictions on the use of their weapons.
Kyiv wants to use American and British weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, a demand that has so far been denied.
Medvedev regularly posts on his Telegram account, frequently threatening the prospect of nuclear war if Ukraine or the West crosses certain “red lines.”
In September, the ally of Putin said “arrogant Western dimwits” were pushing Russia towards drastic military action.
He wrote: “Yet, Russia has been patient. It is obvious that a nuclear response is a hugely complex decision with irreversible consequences. What arrogant Anglo-Saxon dimwits fail to admit, though, is that you can only test someone’s patience for so long.”
This came in the same month that Putin himself had announced that Russia is reassessing its nuclear response doctrine.
Putin said he would consider “aggression against Russia by any nonnuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, as their joint attack on the Russian Federation.”
A US State Department spokesperson dismissed Medvedev’s latest remarks, telling Newsweek: “We know by now not to take Medvedev seriously. This is standard Kremlin nonsense.”
