Top Putin Ally Warns the West: Russia’s Nuke Threats Are Not a Bluff

A former Russian president on Friday warned that Moscow is not bluffing about its willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and said Kyiv’s international backers are making a “fatal mistake” if they think otherwise.

Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Vladimir Putin and the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the menacing remarks in reaction to reports that Western countries—including the U.S.—have given Ukraine permission to use their supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. “The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.

“Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from NATO countries,” Medvedev wrote. He claimed that such activity does not constitute “military assistance” to Ukraine, but rather active “participation in a war against us.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.