Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the idea of supplying nuclear weapons to Ukraine came from the “radical faction” of Kiev supporters in the West who have lost touch with reality, RT reported.
Last week, on November 21, the New York Times reported that EU and US officials suggested that outgoing US President Joe Biden "return to Ukraine the nuclear weapons seized from the country after the collapse of the Soviet Union" as a "security guarantee".
“It would be an immediate and huge deterrent,” the paper declared in an article by four reporters, but citing anonymous sources, while acknowledging that such a move would be “complicated and have serious implications.”
On November 26, commenting on the New York Times article, Mr. Peskov said: "You know, even the most provocative approach to escalating tensions has an extremist faction. The above idea may have come from this extremist faction."
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin described the proposal to transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine as "absolutely irresponsible considerations of people who probably have a poor understanding of reality and do not feel the slightest responsibility" for the consequences of their proposals.
“All these statements are anonymous,” Mr Peskov also noted.
Moscow is concerned that "the outgoing administration in Washington continues to pursue further escalation," the spokesman added.
For his part, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now Deputy Chairman of the Russian National Security Council, warned that Russia would view any threat of the US supplying nuclear weapons to Ukraine as preparation for a direct war with Russia. The transfer of nuclear weapons would actually be tantamount to an attack on the country according to Russia's new nuclear doctrine, Mr. Medvedev stressed.
US lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene also criticized the idea of providing nuclear weapons to Kiev, saying it would be "insane and completely unconstitutional, possibly an act of treason".
In a post on social media X on November 26, Representative Greene of Georgia wondered if the Biden administration was "trying to start a nuclear war and use it as a reason to prevent the transfer of power to President-elect Donald Trump."
Last week, Russia formally updated its nuclear doctrine, allowing for a nuclear response to a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state backed by a major power possessing weapons of mass destruction.
Russia also fired its new Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile at a Ukrainian military industrial facility in response to Kiev’s use of US- and UK-made long-range weapons on internationally recognized Russian territory. Kiev’s attacks came after Washington gave it the green light.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attacks deep into Russian territory had brought the Ukrainian conflict to a global level, as Kiev could not have carried them out without the support of NATO countries.
"We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities," President Putin warned.
