NATO member states are currently training Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16s ahead of the expected transfer of the aircraft. Kiev has been asking for the Western fighter jets for months, saying they were needed to combat Russian air superiority, according to a report by RT. 

”An accidental, unintentional outbreak of a nuclear conflict is not something to be discarded, which is why all those machinations around Ukraine are dangerous,” Medvedev said in an extensive interview with Russian journalists, as quoted by TASS on Thursday. Medvedev cited the U.S.-designed aircraft as a possible trigger, noting that Kiev wants them despite having no ground infrastructure to operate them.

”So if one of those planes takes off from a NATO nation [on a Ukrainian mission] – what would that be? An attack on Russia. I shall not describe what could happen next,” he said. “Such a development may not be even sanctioned by the NATO leadership and the US.”

Russia says that F-16s are particularly problematic because they can deploy nuclear gravity bombs. The doomsday clock “is ticking” and has “sped up considerably,” Medvedev added.

To be fair, the doomsday clock has always been close to midnight. Since it was launched in 1947, the furthest from doomsday we’ve ever been according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is 17 minutes from midnight. Because of its use as a fear-mongering tool, we don’t put a lot of stake into what the doomsday clock reads. Rather, pay attention to the rhetoric from the ruling classes. That’s far more telling.