2024-05-10 19:06:00
Cruise missile delivery
Medvedev threatens Paris and London with a counter-attack
May 10, 2024, 9:06 pm
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Dmitri Medvedev is a hardliner who likes to threaten the West with strong words. This time it hits France and Great Britain. Medvedev speaks of “strikes” and threatens a reaction if Western cruise missiles are fired into Russian territory.
The former President of Russia and the current Deputy Chairman of the National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has made serious threats to London and Paris in the event of an attack from Ukraine with British or French cruise missiles. Such attacks against Russian territory would not be led by “idiots in embroidered robes, but by the British and the French,” Medvedev wrote Telegram. By the “embroidered robes” he referred to the traditional costume of the Ukrainians.
During his term as president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, Medvedev was viewed by the West as a relatively liberal politician. He has held major positions since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine more than two years ago. He often outdoes himself with pithy threats against the West. Experts also see this as an attempt to raise his profile in the power struggles within the Kremlin.
But Russian state television also repeatedly talks about possible attacks – including nuclear weapons – on Western capitals, including Berlin. The threatening gestures can be seen as an attempt to discourage the West from further aid to Ukraine.
“Even with special ammunition”
Russia is trying to “cause Western decision-makers to restrain themselves and soften their support for Ukraine,” the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW) recently wrote. During its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow repeatedly threatened nuclear strikes to force its self-defined enemy – the West – to withdraw military support, an analysis says.
Medvedev also threatened that the response to such attacks would not be directed with cruise missiles “in certain circumstances” against Kiev. “And not only with conventional explosives, but also with special ammunition.” His Royal Highness’s “completely uneducated idiots” should understand this too, he said, addressing Great Britain.
A few days ago, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron pledged support for Ukraine again during his visit to Kiev. According to the British news agency PA, he emphasized during his trip that it was up to Kiev to decide how the Ukrainians would use the weapons provided. Russia attacked Ukraine and Ukraine has the right to strike back. Asked if this included targets in Russia itself, he said: “This is a decision for Ukraine and Ukraine has this right.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry had also objected to Cameron’s remarks and threatened counter-attacks. Both France and Great Britain support Ukraine by supplying cruise missiles. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejects the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.
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