Trump also rebuked Medvedev in July, accusing him of throwing around the "N (nuclear) word" after the Russian official criticised U.S. strikes on Iran and said "a number of countries" were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads.

“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.