(Article republished from TASS.com)

MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/. The world faces a global conflict if Washington’s goal is to defeat Moscow.

Russia will defend itself by any means, including with nuclear weapons, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

"It is obvious to all the powers that be that if the US wants to defeat Russia, we are heading for a conflict on a global scale. If the US wants to defeat Russia, we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including of the nuclear kind," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

Imminent solution

Medvedev recalled that the day before, President Vladimir Putin gave his State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly which announced, among other things, the suspension of Russia's participation in the Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (START, New START). "This decision was long overdue, I pointed to it last year," the politician said.

According to his assessment, the decision, which was due to the war declared on Russia by the US and other NATO countries, will have big reverberations for the world at large and for Washington in particular.

"After all, the American establishment's reasoning so far has been the following: we will interfere in your affairs, we will supply copious amounts of weapons to the Kiev regime, we will work to defeat Russia, we will limit and destroy you, but strategic security is a separate topic. It's not related to the overall context of the US-Russia relationship. It is almost like a sacred cow," Medvedev noted.

This conclusion, he continued, is "worse than a crime - it is the Americans’ grave mistake". According to the politician, this is a mistake "born of their mania grandiosa," that is, their sense of superiority and impunity.

He quoted Putin as saying that it was impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield and noted that "this is exactly why we have suspended New START (for now)". "Let the US elites who have lost touch with reality think about what they have achieved. Let's also watch the reaction of other NATO nuclear powers: France and the UK. Their strategic nuclear forces were not usually included in the list of nuclear warheads and carriers when preparing agreements between the United States and the USSR (Russia), but it is high time to do so," Medvedev summed up.

Read more at: TASS.com