Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday that supplying U.S. Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine could end badly for everyone, especially U.S. President Donald Trump.
Medvedev, an arch-hawk who has repeatedly goaded Trump on social media, said it is impossible to distinguish between Tomahawk missiles carrying nuclear warheads and conventional ones after they are launched - a point that President Vladimir Putin's spokesman has also made.
"How should Russia respond? Exactly!" Medvedev said on Telegram, appearing to hint that Moscow's response would be nuclear.
Trump said again on Sunday that he may offer long-range Tomahawk missiles that could be used by Kyiv if Putin does not end the war in Ukraine.
"Yeah, I might tell him (Putin), if the war is not settled, we may very well do it," Trump said. "We may not, but we may do it... Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so."
Medvedev wrote: "One can only hope that this is another empty threat... Like sending nuclear submarines closer to Russia."
He was alluding to Trump's statement in August that he had ordered two nuclear subs to move closer to Russia in response to what he called "highly provocative" comments from Medvedev about the risk of war.
Putin has said supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks - which have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles) and could therefore strike anywhere within European Russia, including Moscow - would destroy relations between the United States and Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would only use Tomahawk missiles for military purposes and not attack civilians in Russia, should the U.S. provide them.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to Israel that he and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed Zelenskyy's request for weaponry, including Tomahawks. They spoke by phone on Saturday and Sunday.
Putin said earlier this month that it was impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct participation of U.S. military personnel and so any supply of such missiles to Ukraine would trigger a "qualitatively new stage of escalation."
Still, Zelenskyy, in a Sunday evening address in Ukraine, said he saw Russia's concerns as reason to press forward.
"We see and hear that Russia is afraid that the Americans may give us Tomahawks — that this kind of pressure may work for peace," Zelenskyy said.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
Iran’s Assembly of Experts has backed withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and overhauling the country’s defence doctrine, calling both steps essential to national security and deterrence.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-Pacific region.
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Hungarian authorities have recovered nearly $20 million in cash hidden in buildings and buried in forests as part of a bribery investigation into Miklós Seszták, a former minister under ex-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to hold a historic trilateral meeting in Shenzhen on 19 November. The White House says the talks will focus on nuclear arms reductions, with Iran also on the agenda.
U.S. negotiators floated the idea of Ukraine withdrawing from the eastern Donbas region in exchange for NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
China is taking its space technology ambitions beyond its borders, with a major deal to build a network of 20 artificial intelligence-powered satellites for Oman.
Europe will send a team of diplomats to Ukraine peace talks rather than a single envoy, EU leaders agreed on Friday at the end of a summit in Dublin.
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