Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former prime minister and now deputy chairman of the Security Council, has once again threatened the West with nuclear escalation after some nations greenlit decisions for Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with Western weaponry.

Kyiv has repeatedly asked the West to lift restrictions on striking military targets in Russia with weapons it has provided to counter strikes being launched from within Russia.

In a lengthy Telegram post, Medvedev warned that Western weapons in and outside of Ukraine deployed against targets in Russia “will be destroyed” and accused the West of sending troops to Ukraine and “directly” controlling long-range weapons to be used against Russian targets.

“These are dangerous and harmful misconceptions. Such ‘individual assistance’ from NATO countries against Russia, be it controlling their long-range cruise missiles or sending a contingent of troops to Ukraine, is a serious escalation of the conflict,” said Medvedev.

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He also threatened NATO with dire consequences despite Moscow’s failure to establish full control over the Ukrainian territories it has occupied. 

“The former Ukraine and its NATO allies will receive a response of such destructive force that the Alliance itself simply will not be able to resist being drawn into the conflict,” said Medvedev.

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The Kremlin defended the policy changes as a necessary response to perceived “Western threats,” where the use of Western non-nuclear missiles can potentially lead to Moscow’s nuclear response.

He then said the West is miscalculating the risks of nuclear escalation, just like it had not expected Moscow to invade Ukraine, which it eventually did.

“A few years ago, they insisted that Russia would not enter into an open military conflict with the Bandera regime [sic], so as not to quarrel with the West. They miscalculated. There is a war going on.

“The use of tactical nuclear weapons can also be miscalculated. Although this would be a fatal mistake,” said Medvedev, who then proceeded to openly hint that Russia could use nuclear weapons to strike Europe and beyond.

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“After all, as the President of Russia rightly noted, European countries have a very high population density. And for those enemy countries whose lands are further than the tactical nuclear weapons coverage area, there is finally a strategic potential,” he said.

However, Medvedev concluded by saying it “is not intimidation or nuclear bluff,” where “the current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario.”

As Kyiv Post reported last October, Medvedev has taken on the role of the “herald of the apocalypse” and issued more than 50 nuclear warnings over the course of a year. In March of 2023, for example, Kyiv Post has calculated he issued 10 such warnings in a single month.

On May 6 this year, Medvedev said in one of his now customary social media rants that Russia would respond with a nuclear strike on London, Paris and Washington if Western troops were sent to Ukraine.

In January, he said the Kremlin would respond with nuclear weapons if Ukraine attacked missile launch sites inside Russia using weapons that were proved to be of Western origins.

In March 2023, he threatened to nuke Germany after its justice minister said it would arrest Putin in compliance with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant over child abduction should Putin step foot in the country.

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In July of the same year, he threatened to bomb nuclear facilities in Ukraine and Europe following unconfirmed reports of a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Smolensk nuclear plant. The same month, he said Russia would use nuclear weapons against Ukraine if its counteroffensive was a success.

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