An ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, is warning President Joe Biden that if the U.S. is seeking to defeat Russia, then Russia has the "right" to use nuclear weapons.
The saber-rattling came in a post Wednesday on Telegram by Medvedev, as Biden left Ukraine and Poland and pledged more aid and cash assistance to the war effort against Russia's invasion that began a year ago.
"The American establishment has been thinking until now something like this: We will spoil you everywhere and in everything; we will supply gigantic volumes of weapons to the Kyiv regime; we will work to defeat Russia; we will limit and destroy you; but strategic security is a separate issue," Medvedev's post read, as translated by the social media site. "It is not connected with the general context of relations between the U.S. and Russia. She is almost a sacred cow.
"This conclusion is worse than a crime — this is a gross mistake of the Americans. An error generated by their mania grandiosa. Their sense of superiority and impunity.
"After all, it is obvious to all reasonable forces that if the United States wants the defeat of Russia, then we are on the verge of a world conflict. If the United States wants to defeat Russia, then we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including nuclear."
Medvedev's remarks come as Putin has suspended compliance in the New START treaty, the last standing nuclear arms agreement between the U.S. and Russia. He added the treaty was just between those two countries, but it fails to consider the nuclear power of NATO allies that stand with the U.S. against Russia.
"We will also observe the reaction of other nuclear powers — NATO members: France and Britain," his post continued. "Their strategic nuclear forces were usually not included in the balance of nuclear warheads and carriers when preparing agreements between the U.S. and the USSR [Russia], but it is high time to do so."
Medvedev was Russia's president from 2008-2018 and the prime minister until 2020.
He concluded with a vow: Russia is in its war in Ukraine until the bitter end, despite myriad calls for Russia to pull out of the Donbas regions, suggesting the U.S. ceasing its support for Ukraine can bring an end to the war.
"If Russia stops the NWO without achieving victory, Russia will not exist, it will be torn to pieces," Medvedev's post concluded. "If the U.S. stops supplying weapons to the Kyiv regime, the war will end."
Many NATO allies and Russia critics argue a Putin victory in Ukraine would merely be a precursor to further aggression in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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