MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian former President Dmitry Medvedev blamed NATO countries on Monday for the abandonment of a moratorium on short- and medium-range nuclear missiles and said Moscow would take further steps in response.

“Putin uses Medvedev as a tool to express statements related to nuclear weapons, he doesn’t want to discredit his own good peacekeeper’s name,” Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said ironically.