Former Russian president and deputy head of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has managed to once again shock and anger Western officials (and entire populations for that matter) with his jingoist rhetoric and nuclear threats.
Just a couple of weeks ago he warned that if Russia is attacked by NATO it would have “no choice” but to unleash nuclear “apocalypse” which would lead to “the end of everything”. Over this weekend he actually managed to top and surpass his own words in terms of nuclear ‘threat level’ and rhetoric. He has expanded on the prior remarks by saying the Kremlin stands ready to use its entire strategic arsenal on London, Washington, Berlin and Kiev.
His fresh warning focused on Russia’s military hold on the four annexed territories in Ukraine’s east. Moscow now sees this as Russian territory and says it will never give it up.
“Attempts to return Russia to the borders of 1991 will lead to only one thing. Towards a global war with Western countries using the entire strategic arsenal of our state,” Medvedev began in the Sunday statement posted to Telegram. He followed ominously with a ‘target list’…
”In Kiev, Berlin, London, Washington.”
He further described that nuclear missiles would strike “all other beautiful historical places that have long been included in the flight targets of our nuclear triad.”
“Will we have the courage to do this if the disappearance of a thousand-year-old country, our great Motherland, is at stake, and the sacrifices made by the people of Russia over the centuries will be in vain?” Medvedev then said: “The answer is obvious.”
This is not the first time he’s warned of “nuclear fire” if NATO or Ukraine forces seize Russian territory. Moscow has warned could deploy its nuclear arsenal if it faces at ‘existential threat’ to its survival.
However, this appears to be the first time Russia has threatened nukes if its control of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia faces existential threat. Of course, this includes Crimea too.
The Zelensky government has not given up on its goal of liberating all of these territories, however. Also, Kiev has even demanded that Russia give up its claim to Crimea. But this latter aspect to Zelensky’s peace formula is widely seen as a non-starter for any future serious peace negotiations to end the war.
Certainly Ukraine will also have to give up territory if it ever hopes for peace, unless the tide of battle turns quickly, which is very unlikely at this point.
In January, there began to be confirmation of the US preparing deployment of B61-12 nuclear warheads to Britain, specifically at RAF Lakenheath, a base in Suffolk, England.
#Russia would regard any return of #US nuclear weapons to bases in Britain as an “escalation and a destabilizing practice,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says.https://t.co/odjTJOnSRe
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) September 5, 2023
Moscow has previously accused Western and NATO intelligence services of assisting with the growing space of cross-border missile and drone attacks on Russian territory.. Recently it has accused France of maintaining mercenaries in the northern city of Kharkiv, in order to mount attacks on nearby Belgorod Oblast. There are rising fears that this ‘indirect’ fighting or proxy war could drift into a direct ‘live fire’ war between Russia and NATO countries, but so far this has been narrowly avoided.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 02/19/2024 – 18:00
