Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, has warned NATO that the defeat of Russia in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.
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"The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war," Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Putin's powerful security council, said in a post on Telegram on Thursday.
"Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends," said Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012.
Medvedev said NATO and other defence leaders, due to meet at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Friday to talk about strategy and support for the West's attempt to defeat Russia in Ukraine, should think about the risks of their policy.
Russia and the United States hold about 90 per cent of the world's nuclear warheads. Putin is the ultimate decision maker on the use of nuclear weapons.
Asked if Medvedev's remarks signified that Russia was escalating the crisis to a new level, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "No, it absolutely does not mean that."
He said Medvedev's remarks were in full accordance with Russia's nuclear doctrine which allows for a nuclear strike after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened".
Putin casts Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said Russia will use all available means to protect itself.
The United States and its allies have condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.
Since a grim New Year's Eve message describing the West as Russia's true enemy in the war on Ukraine, Putin has sent several signals that Russia will not back down. He has dispatched hypersonic missiles to the Atlantic and appointed his top general to run the war.
Washington has not detailed what it would do if Putin ordered what would be the first use of nuclear weapons in war since the United States' atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Medvedev, 57, once presented himself as a US-friendly reformer but has recast himself since the war as the most publicly hawkish member of Putin's circle.
Australian Associated Press
