Deputy Chairman of the Security Council and former President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, said in a warning Monday citing the current global tensions that his country’s hostilities with the West could extend for decades, adding that issue of "Ukraine might become permanent".
While writing for the government's Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper article, he stated that the tensions between Russia and the West are much worse than the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the world war was on the brink of nuclear war.
The former Prime Minister also wrote that a nuclear war is quite probable but was unlikely to have any winners.
The 57-year-old Medvedev had been reiterating that Western military and financial support to Ukraine could increase the chances of nuclear war.
He cited sharp differences over Ukraine, the direction of humankind, and the way the world order was structured.
"One thing that politicians of all stripes do not like to admit: such an Apocalypse is not only possible but also quite probable," Medvedev wrote who is a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to Western analysts, Medvedev's nuclear sabre-rattling was a tactic aimed at frightening the West to reduce military support for Ukraine and to instead lean on Kyiv to start peace talks with Moscow.
Many countries in the West, which say they are helping Ukraine defend itself from a brutal colonial war of conquest, have promised to stand by Kyiv for as long as it takes.
The United States, Ukraine's biggest financial and military backer, has said it does not want to engage in a direct conflict with Russia to avoid the risk of a nuclear war.
Ukraine says it won't negotiate until it has driven every Russian soldier from its territory.
Medvedev said Moscow was still committed to stopping Ukraine join Nato.
"Our goal is simple — to eliminate the threat of Ukraine's membership in Nato. And we will achieve it. One way or another," he said.
Given NATO's rule about not admitting countries entangled in territorial conflicts, he said the conflict with Ukraine could become "permanent" given its existential nature for Moscow.
The only way to de-escalate tensions between Russia and the West was to enter into tough negotiations, he said.
Medvedev said: "The confrontation will be very long and it is too late to tame the recalcitrant [West]. The confrontation will last for decades."