The Kremlin says former president’s comments align with Russia’s nuclear doctrine
Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com
(Janary 19, 2023) — Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, warned on Thursday that Russia losing the war in Ukraine could potentially trigger a nuclear war.
“Backward political good-timers in Davos reiterated: ‘To achieve peace, Russia must lose,’” Medvedev wrote on Twitter, referring to the World Economic Forum conference in Davos, Switzerland.
In Davos on Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “weapons are the way to peace,” as he called for more military aid for Ukraine. Medvedev said Western officials don’t understand how a nuclear power’s loss in a conventional war could escalate.
“None of them gets it that a nuclear power’s loss of a conventional war can lead to a nuclear one. Nuclear powers haven’t been defeated in major conflicts crucial for their destiny,” said Medvedev, who was Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012.
The Kremlin later said that Medvedev’s comments aligned with Russia’s military doctrine, which allows the use of nuclear weapons if Russia’s existence is threatened. “Read the nuclear doctrine, there is no contradiction there,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Medvedev’s warning came after The New York Times reported that the US was warming to the idea of helping Ukraine attack Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014.
The report said the Biden administration was going to help Ukrainian officials plan a potential offensive toward the peninsula despite the risk of a major escalation from Russia.
‘Extremely Dangerous’: Russia Reacts to
US Plans to Help Attack Crimea
State Department appears to confirm US-Ukraine
discussions on joint offensive against Russia
(January 19, 2023) — Russian officials on Thursday reacted to a report from The New York Times that said the US was warming to the idea of helping Ukraine strike Crimea despite the risk of a Russian escalation.
When asked about the report on Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price didn’t deny its contents and said, “Crimea is Ukraine,” as the US hasn’t recognized Crimea as Russian since Russia took control of it in 2014.
Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US, responded to Price’s comments and the reports, likening the plans to potential “terrorist attacks” and warning of escalation.
“The State Department, through out-of-touch assertions that ‘Crimea is Ukraine’ and that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can use American weapons to protect their territory, is essentially pushing the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia,” Antonov said, according to a press release from the Russian Embassy in the US.
“Hearing such remarks from Washington, the criminals in Kiev will once again feel complete permissiveness. The risks of conflict escalation will only increase,” he added.
Over in Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US delivering weapons for attacks on “Russian soil” was “extremely dangerous.” The Times report said that the Biden administration previously avoided supporting strikes on Crimea due to the risk of escalation, but that concern of Russia resorting to nuclear weapons has waned in Washington even though the risk clearly still exists.
“Naturally, the very discussion of the acceptability of supplying Ukraine with arms which would allow strikes to be delivered on Russian soil … is potentially extremely dangerous,” Peskov said. “This will mean taking the conflict to a whole new level which certainly will not bode well in terms of global European security.”
The US reasoning for being less concerned about escalation is based on the fact that Russia hasn’t used a nuclear weapon up to this point. But Moscow has shown a willingness to massively escalate the war in response to attacks on Crimea.
Russia didn’t start large-scale missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure until October, after the truck bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to the Russian mainland. Since then, the bombardments have become routine, and millions of Ukrainians are struggling to power and heat their homes.
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