An ally of President Vladimir Putin warned NATO on Thursday that Russia’s defeat in ukraine could spark a nuclear war, while the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said the world would end if the West tried to destroy Russia.
On the eve of a meeting of Ukraine’s allies to discuss sending more weapons to Kyiv, such apocalyptic rhetoric aims to deter the US-led NATO military alliance from getting even more involved in the war.
But the apparent recognition that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield marked a rare moment of public skepticism from a prominent member of Putin’s inner circle.
“The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war could trigger a nuclear war,” Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who served as deputy chairman of Putin’s powerful Security Council, said in a post on Telegram.
Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012, said, “The nuclear powers have never lost the major conflicts on which their fate depends.”
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church struck a similar tone in what he described as a worrying time for the country, saying in a sermon for Epiphany that trying to destroy Russia would mean the end of the world.
Medvedev said about the risks to his policy, as NATO and other defense leaders are due to meet at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday to talk about strategy and support for the West’s effort to defeat Russia in Ukraine. should think.
Putin cast Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West and said Russia would use all available means to defend itself and its people.
‘dangerous times’
The Kremlin chief has in recent months sought to prepare Russians for a more difficult battle by promising final victory in a war that leaders in the West say will never let them win.
The United States has denied Russian claims that it wants to destroy Russia, while President Joe Biden cautioned that it could trigger a conflict between Russia and NATO World War three.
But Putin’s top aides say the tens of billions of dollars of US and European military aid to Ukraine suggests Russia is now itself in confrontation with NATO – a Cold War nightmare for both Soviet and Western leaders.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said in a sermon: “We pray to God to give reason to the madmen and help them to understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world.”
“Today is a dangerous time,” state news agency RIA quoted him as saying. “But we believe that the Lord will not leave the Russian land.”
Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters in Minsk that Russia would do everything to ensure that NATO and EU leaders “calm down” as soon as possible.
Lavrov said, “I hope that restraint will come.” “We will do everything so that our allies in NATO and the European Union can calm down as soon as possible.”
atomic theory
Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War II and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The United States and its allies have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is driven out of its territory.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Medvedev has repeatedly raised the threat of nuclear war, but now his admission of the possibility of Russia’s defeat indicates Moscow’s level of concern over increased Western arms supplies to Ukraine. .
Russia and the United States, by far the largest nuclear powers, possess approximately 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
Asked whether Medvedev’s remarks indicated Russia was escalating the crisis to a new level, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “No, it doesn’t mean that at all.”
He added that Medvedev’s remarks were fully in line with Russia’s nuclear doctrine which “allows nuclear strikes after aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is at risk”.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)