Medvedev: Russia will use nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened

The Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev has said that the United States is making a mistake if it believes that Moscow will not use nuclear weapons if its existence is threatened.

In his statement yesterday Saturday to the RT channel of Russia, Medvedev asked Washington to deal seriously with Moscow's threat of using nuclear weapons, saying that this will avoid the outbreak of the Third World War.

Medvedev, who used to be the president of Russia, has said: "The senior officials in the United States do not want the third world war to happen, but for some reason they believe that the Russians will not cross a certain line, but they are wrong."

He added that, Moscow believes that the current institutions of the United States and Europe do not have the wisdom and vision of his fellow American diplomat, Henry Kissinger.

Dmitry Medvedev has said: "When we talk about the existence of our country, as our president says often, we will have no other choice, except to use nuclear weapons."

These statements have been made in parallel with the advance of Russian military forces in eastern Ukraine, and the West continuing to provide arms and money to the Kiev government.

For their part, US diplomats admit that relations between Washington and Moscow are going through the worst period since the Cold War era.