Aleksey Likhachev, the head of the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom, at an educational marathon in Moscow said a sentence that doesn't sound like a news item but like the title of a military document: "The main mission of Rosatom - the nuclear shield and the nuclear sword - remains our critical task".

At the same event, the deputy chairman of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, went deeper: "There are other prototypes, very promising, which I wouldn't want to go into in detail". Translation: we have weapons we aren't talking about - and that is the very point of the statement.

Likhachev also confirmed that Putin personally follows the development of "weapons based on new physical principles". That's a Russian formulation that can mean anything - from hypersonic missiles to a new generation of strategic missile systems. What's certain: Rosatom doesn't only work on civilian nuclear plants. It is also part of the industrial strategy of the Russian military.

Medvedev added another sentence that in diplomatic language sounds like a threat: "We have everything our opponents have, plus a bit more". He didn't say what. He didn't have to.

Why does this statement come now? Because the world is watching Iran, Ukraine, the Middle East - and Russia doesn't want to be forgotten. When Moscow feels sidelined, Moscow opens the nuclear conversation. That is an old formula.

For the Balkans, this isn't a topic to spin out, but to listen to. We are in the border zone between Russian influence and the Western bloc. Nuclear threats from Moscow only protect us if we're on the right side of the conversation - and at this moment, no one knows precisely which side that is.