Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s security council and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, made the threat in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
“The loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war,” Medvedev wrote in a post criticizing Western powers ahead of a Friday meeting in Germany to discuss further military support for Ukraine.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, added, “The nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends.”
[This smells a lot like the Kremlin’s escalate-to-de-escalate extortion strategy. It’s not working thus far, and one has to wonder just how much long Xi Jinping will want to backstop it diplomatically, let alone financially or militarily. — Ed]
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