"I don't want ‍to say that this immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should ‌still alarm everyone," Medvedev told Reuters, TASS and the WarGonzo Russian war blogger in an interview at his residence outside Moscow.

Arms ⁠control treaties, Medvedev said, played a crucial role not just in limiting the number of warheads but ‍also ⁠as a way to verify intentions and to ensure some ⁠element of trust between major nuclear ‌powers.