Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Security Council Chairman and former President of Russia, has given another blunt warning to Western leaders over their increasingly dangerous involvement in the war in Ukraine. In a Sep. 10 interview with Vedomosti, Medvedev was asked about his recent “hinting” at Russia’s use of nuclear weapons. He responded strongly that his comments were “not hints,” but referred to Russia’s actual nuclear doctrine. “This is not a scare tactic; it is reality. Russia’s nuclear doctrine—under which the country reserves the right to use such weapons if its security is threatened—can hardly be described as a mere hint,” he said, reported Anadolu Agency.

Russia’s nuclear doctrine holds that any aggression by a non-nuclear state, with the participation or support of a nuclear power, is considered a joint attack—and Russia reserves the right to respond accordingly.

Medvedev accused the West of deliberately trying to bring the world to the “brink of nuclear apocalypse,” calling its support for Ukrainian strikes on peaceful Russian cities “aggressive actions that could one day trigger World War III. And that means erasing the entire history of human civilization, returning it to a primitive state, if any of the billions of people on the planet were to survive at all,” he noted.

Russia “recognize[s] our responsibility for the fate of humanity and [is] striving with all our might to avert a global catastrophe. But our patience is not limitless. This ultimate option remains a last resort, to be used only when all other measures have failed. Today, we are but a couple of steps away from it—mere seconds on the Doomsday Clock,” Medvedev said