‘Arms supply to Kyiv threaten global nuclear catastrophe’: Ex-Russian President

An ally of Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Monday said that the continued arms supply to Kyiv risks a global nuclear catastrophe, reiterating his threat of nuclear war over Ukraine. The remarks were published in the daily Izvestia. 

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russia President's apocalyptic rhetoric has been seen as an attempt to deter the US-led NATO military alliance and Kyiv's Western allies from getting even more involved in the year-old war that has dealt Moscow setbacks on the battlefield, according to Reuters. 

The latest comments by Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Putin's powerful security council, follow Putin's nuclear warning last week and his Sunday remarks casting Moscow's confrontation with the West as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people.

“Of course, the pumping in of weapons can continue .... and prevent any possibility of reviving negotiations. Our enemies are doing just that, not wanting to understand that their goals will certainly lead to a total fiasco. Loss for everyone. A collapse. Apocalypse. Where you forget for centuries about your former life, until the rubble ceases to emit radiation,” Medvedev said in the remarks.

Putin has earlier said that the people of Ukraine have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military, and economic sense.

He accused Ukraine’s leaders of taking the country’s population “hostage", adding Kyiv is “serving the interests of foreign powers".

The remarks came on US President Joe Biden's surprise visit to Ukraine, the country since war broke out nearly a year ago. As air raid sirens blared across the Ukrainian capital, Biden met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced an additional half billion dollars in US assistance.

(With Reuters inputs)