A key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued an ominous warning as he ramped up Moscow’s hostile rhetoric against the United States.
Former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev blasted Americans as “nits” and insisted Washington has to “tremble and shake” if it continues to provide help to Ukraine.
Medvedev rejected talks on imposing limits on nuclear firepower and instead warned there would be no reduction in the number of Russia‘s nuclear warheads arsenal until the US withdrew its support to Kyiv.
In a chilling warning issued on Telegram, the former Russian PM said: “The United States quite seriously proposes that we negotiate on a new treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons.
“We, they say, will supply the neo-Nazis with all types of weapons, including long-range missiles and aircraft, and discuss the New START Treaty with you.”
The United States has been working on re-engaging Moscow into signing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which Medvedev initially signed during the Obama Administration in 2010.
Under the deal, both nations agreed to reduce their nuclear warhead arsenal by half and to introduce a new system to monitor developments. Russia suspended its involvement in February 2023.
Medvedev slammed US attempts to push Moscow into re-engaging in the deal as “absurdity, madness, delirium of a madman.”
He said: “What rude, cynical creatures! No, this is only possible after refusing to supply weapons to the Bandera regime and blocking its admission to NATO.”
Stepan Bandera was a far-right political leader in charge of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists between 1940 and 1959.
Medvedev added: “Let their entire elite worry! Let them tremble and shake, you nits!”
However, experts have argued the former Prime Minister’s threats are mostly “for local consumption” rather than a sign of growing Russian aggression.
His comments come after a Swedish think tank earlier this week noted that the world’s nine nuclear-armed states continue to modernise their nuclear weapons as the countries deepened their reliance on such deterrence in 2023
Wilfred Wan, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s weapons of mass destruction programme, said: “We have not seen nuclear weapons playing such a prominent role in international relations since the Cold War.”
In a separate report, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, said the nine nuclear-armed states spent a combined total of $91.4 billion on their arsenals in 2023 – equivalent to $2,898 per second.