Russia has the might to put enemies led by the United States in their place and Moscow will foil the West’s Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart, Dmitry Medvedev said.
Medvedev, who served as president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s security council, said the United States had stoked “disgusting” Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia on its knees and then rip it apart.
“It will not work – Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place,” Medvedev said.
The threat by former President Dmitry Medvedev came as Russia’s ties with the West have sunk to new lows over its invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by President Vladimir Putin, had earlier warned that Moscow could restore the death penalty after Russia was removed from Europe’s top rights group – a chilling statement that shocked human rights activists in a country that has not had capital punishment for a quarter-century.
The sanctions placed new tight restrictions on Russian financial operations, imposed a draconian ban on technology exports to Russia and froze the assets of Putin and his foreign minister, a harsh response that dwarfed earlier Western restrictions.
Washington and its allies say even tougher sanctions are possible, including kicking Russia out of SWIFT, the dominant system for global financial transactions.
In sarcastic comments posted on a Russian social platform, Medvedev dismissed the sanctions as a show of Western “political impotence” that will only consolidate the Russian leadership and foment anti-Western feelings.
“We are being driven out of everywhere, punished and threatened, but we don’t feel scared,” he said, mocking the sanctions imposed by the US and its allies as an attempt to vindicate their past “shameful decisions, like a cowardly retreat from Afghanistan”.
Medvedev was placeholder president in 2008-2012 when Putin had to shift into the prime minister’s seat because of term limits. He then let Putin reclaim the presidency and served as his prime minister for eight years.
