Nuclear deterrence only factor preventing West from waging full-fledged war on Russia: Medvedev

Russia's former president, Dmitry Medvedev, says the only thing that is preventing the West from seeking an all-out war with Russia is the country's nuclear arsenal.

"Is the West ready to unleash a full-fledged war against us, including a nuclear war...?" Medvedev, who is currently deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, wrote in an article in the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, which was published on Sunday.

"The only thing that stops our enemies today is the understanding that Russia will be guided by the fundamentals of state policy ... on nuclear deterrence. And in the event that a real threat arises, it will act on them," he added.

"The Western world is balancing between a burning desire to humiliate, offend, dismember, and destroy Russia as much as possible, on the one hand, and the desire to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, on the other," Medvedev added.

Russia enjoys the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, with an arsenal containing close to 6,000 warheads. 

On December 7, Putin said the risk of a nuclear war was rising, but added that Russia had not “gone mad” and sees its nuclear arsenal as a purely deterrent in nature.

The Russian leader added that, while the United States had stationed some of its nukes inside the territory of some members of the Washington-led military alliance of NATO in Europe, "We have not, and are not, transferring our nuclear weapons to anyone. 

US says 'nuclear war must never be fought,’ after Putin warning

The United States has said that a “nuclear war is something that must never be fought,” after Putin stated that nuclear tensions had risen because of the war in Ukraine.

He, however, warned that Moscow would protect its allies "with all the means at our disposal," if necessary.

A few days later, however, Putin suggested that Moscow may formally change its military doctrine of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict.

Speaking at a news conference in the Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek, Putin said Moscow may decide to indoctrinate the preemptive nuclear strike concept that the Americans have formulated in their military strategy.

“They (the US) have it in their strategy, in the documents it is spelled out – a preventive blow. We don’t. We, on the other hand, have formulated a retaliatory strike in our strategy,” Putin said, adding, “This means that the fall of the warheads of enemy missiles on the territory of the Russian Federation is inevitable – they will still fall.”

Amid war in Ukraine, Putin suggests changing Russia’s ‘no first use’ nuclear policy

Putin said the US policy was not to exclude the possibility of a “disarming” nuclear strike, while Russia’s strategy has been to use nuclear weapons as a last resort.

"Russia will continue war until regime in Kiev removed" 

Medvedev also addressed the issue of Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.

Moscow says it started the war in February in order to defend the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk against persecution by Kiev, and also to "de-Nazify" the ex-Soviet republic.

Moscow would pursue the war until the "disgusting, almost fascist regime" in Kiev is removed and the country is totally demilitarized, Medvedev said elsewhere in his article.

If Russia did not get the security guarantees it is demanding, he added, "The world will continue to teeter on the brink of World War Three and nuclear catastrophe. We will do everything we can to prevent it."

Moscow has been pressing the West, most notably the US, to provide it with an answer to its list of security guarantees, which includes preclusion of NATO from expanding close to Russia's borders. Russia has also made it clear that under no circumstances it would accept Ukraine's accession to the Western military alliance.

The West has, however, not only stopped short of responding to Russia's demands, and has even moved closer to the Russian borders by incorporating Sweden and Finland as the new members of NATO.

Amid significant souring of ties between Moscow and the West, mostly over the Ukrainian conflict, Medvedev said, "Russia could forget about normal ties with the Western countries for years and perhaps decades and focus instead on enhancing relations with the rest of the world."

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