As the United States moves closer to a decision on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, the Kremlin is cranking up the rhetoric in a bid to deter US President Donald Trump. Commenting on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that the issue of Tomahawks was causing “extreme concern” in Moscow and said the war was now entering a “dramatic moment” with tensions escalating on all sides. Others were even more outspoken. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev led the way with a thinly-veiled nuclear threat directed personally at Trump. “It’s been said a hundred times, in a manner understandable even to the star-spangled man, that it’s impossible to distinguish a nuclear Tomahawk missile from a conventional one in flight,” Medvedev noted. “The delivery of these missiles could end badly for everyone. And most of all, for Trump himself.”. Medvedev’s nuclear saber-rattling has been echoed by Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Long seen as Putin’s closest international ally and a junior partner in the Kremlin’s Ukraine invasion, Lukashenka warned this week that any decision to provide Kyiv with the US-made long-range missiles could have disastrous ramifications for international security. “Tomahawks will not solve the problem. They will escalate the situation to a nuclear war,” he told colleagues in Minsk.
Tomahawk missiles are Russia’s latest red line. Will Trump call Putin’s bluff? – Atlantic Council
