On Thursday January 19, Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, warned Nato that the defeat of Russia in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.
Medvedev, who serves as deputy chair of Putin’s powerful security council and served as president from 2008 to 2012, said in a post on Telegram, “The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war”.
“Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends”, Medvedev added
Medvedev advised Nato and other defense leaders, who will gather on Friday January 20 at Ramstein Air Base in Germany to discuss strategy and support for the West’s effort to defeat Russia in the Ukraine, to consider the potential downsides of their course of action.
90% of the world’s nuclear warheads are held by Russia and the US, who are by far the two biggest nuclear powers. In terms of using nuclear weapons, Putin has final say.
While Nato has conventional military superiority over Russia, when it comes to nuclear weapons, Russia has nuclear superiority over the alliance in Europe.
One of the deadliest European battles since World War II and the largest confrontations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis have been brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been denounced by the US and its allies as an imperial territorial grab, and Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier has been driven from its soil.
Since declaring the West to be Russia’s true enemy in the conflict in Ukraine in a somber New Year’s Eve message, Putin has made repeated indications that Russia will not yield. He appointed his top general to lead the war and sent hypersonic missiles to the Atlantic.
On Wednesday January 18, Putin claimed that one of the key factors in his country’s success in Ukraine was the robust military-industrial complex that Russia possesses.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear strike after “aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened”.
Since the war, Medvedev has reinvented himself as the most outspokenly hawkish member of Putin’s inner circle. He previously positioned himself as a reformer willing to collaborate with the US to liberalize Russia.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Medvedev has repeatedly raised the threat of nuclear chaos and used insults to describe the West.
Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads while the US has 5,428, China 350, France 290 and the UK 225, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
Author-Roberta Appiah
