He thinks the alliance is too strong
Medvedev: There is no alternative to a nuclear strike against NATO in the event of war
February 8, 2024, 1:09 p.m
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The West is warning of a war with Russia. Former President Medvedev reacts and claims that Moscow is not planning anything like this. He thinks NATO is too strong anyway. The only alternative would be to use nuclear weapons if Russia’s “territorial integrity” was threatened.
Representatives in several countries have recently increasingly warned of a military conflict with Russia and urged them to prepare for such a scenario. For example, Polish Defense Minister Kosiniak-Kamysz told the daily newspaper “Super Express” with unusual clarity that his country had to prepare for a war with Russia. “I anticipate every scenario and take the worst ones most seriously,” Kamysz said. The background is that the Kremlin is believed to be able to launch another invasion beyond Ukraine – even against a NATO member.
Statements like those made by the Polish Defense Minister, which were also made in a similar form in Germany and other countries, were also registered in Moscow. Former Russian President Medvedev reacted in a post on social networks. In it he claims that Russia has repeatedly emphasized that a conflict with NATO and EU member states is not planned.
However, how much credence one can give to such statements is questionable. Recently, Kremlin officials, including President Vladimir Putin, accused NATO countries of “Nazi ideology and methods” and “Russophobia.” Insinuations that Moscow also uses to justify the major invasion of Ukraine. Russia will do “everything to suppress and finally eradicate Nazism,” Putin said.
“Military capabilities unparalleled”
In his contribution, Medvedev writes that if a war were to break out, the NATO countries and Russia would not fight it “in trenches, with artillery, armored vehicles, drones and electronic warfare.” The ex-president, who is deputy chairman of the Security Council, sees the reason for this in the strength of the NATO alliance.
“NATO is a huge military bloc, the total population of the Allies is about a billion people, and their combined military budget can reach up to 1.5 trillion dollars. So since our military capabilities are not comparable, we will simply have no other choice,” said Medvedev. One answer will be “asymmetrical.”
Medvedev then speaks of the “defense of territorial integrity”, i.e. the preservation of Russian national territory, without mentioning the extent to which it is threatened. Defense would be carried out with “ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with special warheads,” said the ex-president. This approach is already known from Russian military doctrine and would result in an “apocalypse” – i.e. “the end of everything”.
Ultimately, these scenarios are based on the assumption that a NATO attack on Russia will take place – which is completely unrealistic. Given the rhetoric from the Kremlin, the emergence of a conflict between NATO and Russia through a Russian attack on an alliance member that would therefore defend itself with the help of its partners is more realistic. However, even that would not automatically mean a threat to Russia’s “territorial integrity.”
ISW: Statements aimed specifically at foreign countries
“Medvedev’s comments about NATO’s larger size and military budget compared to Russia are likely aimed at promoting the Kremlin’s narrative domestically that NATO – and the West in general – poses an existential threat to Russia. One claim that the Kremlin used to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” analyzes the Institute for War Studies (ISW).
The war researchers see the fact that Medvedev published the claims on his English-language X channel and a Russian-language Telegram channel as an indication that the statements are “intended for both an international and a domestic audience.”