Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told the United States on Wednesday that attempts by the West to punish a nuclear power such as Russia for the war in Ukraine risked endangering humanity.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most serious crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
Medvedev cast the United States as an empire which had spilled blood across the world, citing the killing of Native Americans, U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan and a host of wars ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan.