The world will continue to balance on the edge of disaster until Moscow receives the security guarantees it requires, Dmitry Medvedev believes
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current vice-chairman of the Security Council, wrote a long article for Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, summarizing his thoughts on how the year 2022 has changed the world order forever.
“The only thing that stops our enemies today is the understanding that Russia will be guided by [the doctrine] on nuclear deterrence. And if there is a real threat, we will act,โ Medvedev wrote in his article published on Sunday evening – noting that in such a grim scenario, there will be no one left to argue over whether it was “a retaliatory strike or a pre-emptive one.”
“Therefore, the West balances between a burning desire to maximally humiliate, dismember and destroy Russia, on the one hand, and the desire to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, on the other,” he explained.
Until Russia receives the security guarantees it has been demanding, the world will “continue teetering on the brink of World War III and nuclear catastrophe,” Medvedev wrote, noting that Moscow is doing and will continue to do “everything we can to prevent it.”
In December last year, Russia presented a list of security proposals to the US and NATO, which, among other things, called on the West to impose a ban on Ukraine’s entry into the military bloc, while insisting that NATO withdraw to its borders in 1997, before it began expand. .
After the US and NATO flatly refused, saying they would only be interested in limited strategic arms control talks, it became clear that Moscow has “no one to talk and nothing to negotiate” with the West, Medvedev claimed. And when in February “Ukrainian addicts announced their desire to revive their nuclear arsenalMoscow had no choice but to act, he argued.
“Our world has changed, forever. And the main question remains… what kind of future begins today?” he wrote.
“New disarmament agreements are currently unrealistic and unnecessary,” Medvedev reiterated. “The sooner the guarantees of maximum security suitable for our country are received, the sooner the situation will normalize.”
Earlier this month, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Moscow is willing to discuss the subject of security guarantees again, if the West is serious about it, but until then Russia will continue to respond appropriately to any further NATO expansion. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated in February, the bloc has moved to welcome Sweden and Finland into its ranks, although the expansion has not yet been completed.
(RT.com)