US President Donald Trump in the Situation Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 21 June 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/WHITE HOUSE

US President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for claiming that countries could supply Iran with nuclear warheads in response to US airstrikes on the country, warning that the threat of nuclear escalation “should not be treated so casually”.

“Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the ‘N word’ (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran?”, Trump wrote on Truth Social of Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. “Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination?”

“If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The ‘N word’ should not be treated so casually. I guess that’s why Putin’s ‘THE BOSS’”, the US president continued.

Trump’s furious response came in response to a series of tweets by Medvedev on Sunday, in which he claimed that US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites had caused only “minor damage” and would not deter Tehran from the “future production of nuclear weapons”. He also suggested that multiple countries were “ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads” in response to the US attack.

“Donald Trump, once hailed as ‘president of peace,’ has now pushed the US into another war”, Medvedev wrote. “At this rate, Trump can forget about the Nobel Peace Prize”.

Later on Monday, Medvedev addressed what he called Trump’s “concerns” in a separate statement on X, clarifying that Russia had “no intention of supplying nuclear weapons to Iran because, unlike Israel, we are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”.

“But other countries might — and that’s what was said,” Medvedev wrote.

Russia has condemned Washington’s decision to involve itself in the Israel-Iran conflict, calling Washington’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure an “irresponsible” violation of international law that threatened to “further undermine regional and global security”.

During a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi at the Kremlin on Monday, Vladimir Putin said Russia was doing what it could to “assist the Iranian people” in the wake of the strikes, which he called “absolutely unprovoked aggression [with] no grounds and no justification”.