DMITRY MEDVEDEV SAYS “RUSSIA WILL CROSS THE NUCLEAR LINE IF ITS EXISTENCE IS THREATENED”

Sun 03 November 2024:

Moscow has warned the US it should take Russia’s nuclear warnings seriously to avoid World War Three.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s security council and who served as the country’s president from 2008 to 2012, warned the US on Saturday it was “wrong” to believe “that the Russians will never cross a certain line”.

Senior Russian security official and former president Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday that the United States was mistaken if it thought that Moscow would not use nuclear weapons if its existence was threatened, the TASS news agency said.

He told Russian-state broadcaster RT that Moscow believed the current US and European political establishments lacked the “foresight and subtlety of mind” displayed by the late Henry Kissinger.

“If we are talking about the existence of our state, as the president of our country has repeatedly said, your humble servant has said, others have said, of course, we simply will not have any choice,” Medvedev said.

Russia has been signalling for weeks to the West that Moscow will respond if the US and its allies help Ukraine fire longer-range missiles deep into Russia.

Medvedev also said on Sunday that the U.S. presidential vote on Tuesday will not change anything for Moscow.

“The elections will not change anything for Russia, since the candidates’ positions fully reflect the bipartisan consensus on the need for our country to be defeated,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

It’s not the first time Medvedev has warned of a serious escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

Back in September, he threatened that Ukraine’s incursion into the Russian territory of Kursk had given Russia formal grounds to use nuclear weapons.

It comes as Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv became the subject of an overnight aerial attack which lasted until midday today and saw one person injured, city officials said. All drones had been shot down.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has recently seen North Korean troops join the fight alongside Russia’s army, said strikes were also reported in the central Poltava and northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions.

“This year, we have faced the threat of ‘Shahed’ drones almost every night – sometimes in the morning, and even during
the day,” he wrote on social media, referring to the Iranian-made attack drones used by Russia.

Kyiv’s military said on Friday that Moscow’s forces had launched more than 2,000 drones at civilian and military targets
across Ukraine in October alone.

Russia has denied aiming at civilians and said power facilities are legitimate targets when they are part of Ukrainian military infrastructure.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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