There are figures that enter history only for the unhappy role of dictators of dictators. This will be the case of Russian Dmitri Medvedev, 59 years old.
Currently vice president of the Russian Security Council, Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012 just because the Russian law at the time prevented another consecutive term of Vladimir Putin (who continued sending to Kremlin during those four years as Prime Minister).
In the period he warmed a chair for the dictator, Medvedev was even viewed in the West as less authoritarian than Putin.
However, after Medvedev spent the next eight years as Prime Minister and then arranging the mouth of the Russian Security Council, the Ukraine war, which began in February 2022, opened the former Russian president’s undemocratic and anto-dock convictions, which became a kind of Putin and apocalyptic threats.
The dictator occasionally likes to make alert that he can use his nuclear arsenal – according to data from the NGO International campaign to abolish nuclear weapons (ICAN), the largest in the world, with 5,449 nuclear warheads – but Medvedev is more provocative in these threats and adopts a rhetoric that Putin does not have the courage to use.
The most recent generated a reaction from US President Donald Trump. After the US representative decreased for ten days the deadline for Moscow to negotiate a ceasefire with Ukraine, at risk of secondary tariffs, Putin’s doormat went to Telegram to pin the Republican.
“As for the conversation about the ‘dead economies’ of India [que seria fortemente atingida pelas tarifas secundárias dos EUA] and Russia, and ‘get into dangerous territory’ – perhaps he [Trump] You should remember your favorite movies about ‘undead’, as well as remember how dangerous the ‘dead hand’ is, ”Medvedev said last week, referring to a Russian system with the ability to automatically launch a nuclear counterattack.
The next day, Trump announced the position of two nuclear submarines in “appropriate regions”, to “the case of these foolish and inflammatory statements to be more than just that.”
In May, Medvedev had already provoked Trump after the US president said Putin was “playing with fire” and “very bad things” would have happened to the Russian dictator if it wasn’t for him.
“About Trump’s words about Putin ‘play with fire’ and ‘really bad things’ happening to Russia. I only know something really bad – World War IIr. I hope Trump understands that!” Wrote Medvedev on social networks.
In April, in a post on Telegram in which he commented on the 15th anniversary of the New Start Pact signature for Russia and the US (agreement to limit the nuclear arsenals of the two countries, which Moscow withdrew in 2023), Medvedev had blamed the United States and their allies for increasing nuclear tensions.
“At one point, they decided that they could formally maintain nuclear parity with Russia while waging an undeclared war against us with the use of unlimited sanctions, as well as their weapons and experts,” Medvedev wrote. “This took the world on the brink of World War I.”
To pose moderately, Kremlin disavow
The nuclear provocations of the former Russian president have come since the beginning of the war. In July 2022, he wrote on Telegram that it was “madness” the idea of “creating courts or cuts for the alleged investigation of Russia’s actions” in Ukraine.
“These proposals are not just legally null. The idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest nuclear potentials is absurd in itself. And potentially represents a threat to the existence of humanity,” said Medvedev.
In September 2002, the Russian Security Council vice president resumed nuclear rhetoric by alerting Moscow to use such arms to “defend” four Ukrainian regions attached that month through fraudulent referendum.
“Russia has announced that not only mobilization capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and new principles -based weapons, could be used for such protection,” he said.
Two months later, Medvedev said Russia had not yet used all its arsenal against Ukraine, suggesting (again) that nuclear weapons could be used in the conflict.
“Russia, for obvious reasons, has not yet used its entire arsenal of available weapons, equipment and ammunition. And it has not attacked all possible enemies located in populated areas. And not just for our inherent human goodness. Everything has its time,” he teased.
With the war close to turning three and a half, and without Russia used nuclear weapons, Medvedev threats are increasingly skepticism and derision – as the political site had already anticipated in an article in September 2022.
“The war was not kind to Medvedev, whose attempts to get rid of Putin’s least evil twin image, posing like a nuclear crazy, were drowned out by explosions of hysterical laughter of readers of their channel on telegram,” he said.
After changing barbs between Trump and Medvedev, Kremlin disallowed the former president.
“In each country, there are members of the government who have different points of view on ongoing events. There are also people with very radical postures in the US and European countries. This always happens,” Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for Kremlin, said in a news conference on Monday, in which he stressed that the sole person responsible for defining Russia’s foreign policy is Putin.
However, considering that the Russian dictator has been wrapping Trump about a ceasefire since the Republican returned to the White House, it seems that the reprimand to Medvedev was but Kremlin’s small talk to posing moderate.
