” I hate them. They are bastards and degenerates. They want death for us, for Russia. And as long as I live, I will do everything to make them disappear. » Lapidary, the last message of Dmitry Medvedev on the social network Telegram, Tuesday June 7, has the merit of clarity, even if a doubt remains as to what « ils » to whom the former Russian president has such a fierce hatred. The Ukrainians? Unlikely, the Russian public discourse persisting in presenting the neighboring country as a friend victim, in a way, of a misunderstanding. The Westerners ? More surely, as this speech has become a constant with the current number two of the Russian Security Council, whose virulence is proportional to the image of “liberal” that he dragged until then.
Mr. Medvedev’s Telegram feed, opened only in March (for years Russian authorities tried to block the messaging service before giving up), is full of these salient points against the West “odious, criminal and immoral” and caveats: “Russia has enough power to put all these enemies unleashed against our country in their place. » His references to a nuclear confrontation are frequent and the head of the Security Council, an institution that has grown in importance thanks to the conflict in Ukraine, also calls for the reinstatement of the death penalty.
An astonishing career for a man who, because he was keen on rock and new technologies, was long perceived as a « pro-Western” and a liberal. His stay in the Kremlin, between 2008 and 2012, will be marked by promises – not kept – of political openness and economic liberalisation. Eternal understudy of Vladimir Putin, promoted president of the ruling United Russia party since 2012, he then returned to the ranks and had recovered his prime minister’s chair, until 2020.
His transformation into a falcon is not entirely new. In October 2021, he had published a remarkable article, taking up word for word the theses of his mentor on Ukraine to call for “stop contact” with the leaders of this country. He mentioned in particular “certain ethnic roots” (Jews) of Volodymyr Zelensky as an aggravating motive for the supposed rallying of the Ukrainian president to positions “Nazis”.
“New Reality”
Does he believe in it himself, Dmitri Medvedev? This is the question that observers regularly ask themselves, most often deciding in the negative. “He adapts to the new reality, notes the political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya, a good connoisseur of Russian elites. The more liberal you were in the past, the tougher you have to be today to stay at the political forefront. »
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