Kumpul's Allies In Germany Are In Conflict With Ukraine's Conflict Strategy, The Former President Calls Russia's Defeat ABLE To Picu Nuclear War

Illustration of Russian ballistic missiles. (Wikimedia Commons/Dmitry Terekhov)

JAKARTA - Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Vladimir Putin, warned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance on Thursday that Russia's defeat in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Medvedev has repeatedly lifted the threat of a nuclear apocalypse, but his word of a possible Russian defeat has shown Moscow's level of concern over the increase in Western arms shipments to Ukraine.

"The defeat of nuclear power in conventional warfare could trigger a nuclear war," Medvedev, who served as deputy chairman of the security board, said in a post on Telegram.

Medvedev, who served as President of Russia from 2008 to 2012, said nuclear power was never inferior to the major conflict that was the basis for their fate.

Medvedev further warned that NATO and other defense leaders, who will meet at Ramstein US Air Base in Germany on Friday, to discuss strategies and support for Western efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine, should think about their policy risks.

Medvedev, 57, who once featured himself as a reformist ready to work with the United States to generalize Russia, has changed himself since the war as the most hawkish member of Putin's circle in public.

He said the nuclear risk from the Ukraine crisis should be clear for any Western politician who has "conserving at least some intelligence traces".

Asked if Medvedev's remarks signal Russia is stepping up the crisis to a new level, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "No, that doesn't mean anything at all."

He said Medvedev's statement was in full agreement with Russia's nuclear doctrine, which allowed nuclear attacks after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons, when the country's existence was threatened".

President Putin referred to Russia's "special military operations" in Ukraine as an aggressive and arrogant battle with the West, saying Russia would use all available means to protect itself and its people.

Russia and the United States, so far the largest nuclear force, have about 90 percent of the world's nuclear warheads.

While NATO has a conventional military advantage over Russia. In terms of nuclear weapons, Russia has a nuclear advantage over alliances in Europe.

Russia is known to have 5,977 nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, the United States has 5,428, China 350, France 290, and England 225, according to the American Scientists Federation.