MOSCOW (Reuters) – Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.

The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that U.S. President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.

“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.

Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.

“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan)