Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on June 13 called for Russians to take every opportunity to inflict "maximum damage" on Western nations that have declared a "war without rules," with Moscow, imposing increasingly tough sanctions on the Eurasian nation.
"We should try every day to do as much damage as possible to those countries that have imposed these restrictions on our country and all our citizens. Hit them where it hurts," the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council and President Vladimir Putin's top ally and predecessor wrote on his Telegram channel which has 1.3 million followers. "Do damage everywhere, paralyze the operation of their companies and government agencies. Find vulnerabilities in their critical technologies and attack them mercilessly. Destroy their energy, industry, transportation, banking and social services."
He added that Russia needs to respond, not only to the authorities and the state but to all Russian people in general. "After all, they – the U.S. and its crappy allies – have declared war on us without rules!" Medvedev added.
Reuters reported that diplomats are saying Medvedev gives a flavor of hardline and high-level thinking in the Kremlin, though Kyiv and Kremlin critics downplay his influence, casting him as a scaremonger whose job is to deter Western action over Ukraine. "Are they afraid that we would transfer our arms to the enemies of the Western world? We should send every kind of weapon, except nuclear (for now)!" he also wrote on social media. "Are they afraid of anarchy and crime waves in large cities? We should help disrupt their municipal authorities!"
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He assured that Russia could trigger a war in space, wage a psychological warfare campaign against Western citizens so that they "tremble under blankets in their cozy homes" and unleash a tsunami of narratives "to turn their life into a never-ending nightmare, in which they cannot distinguish reality from the wildest fiction." (Related: Medvedev warns that any U.S. strike on Russian targets will be the “start of world war.”)
Meanwhile, the latest round of American restrictions against Russian entities reportedly targets energy, metals, mining and the financial sector. In fact, it has forced the Moscow Stock Exchange to suspend all trade in the U.S. dollar and the euro. The package is one of the biggest since the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities in February 2022, impacting over $100 million in trade between Russia and its foreign partners, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury estimate.
Moreover, without giving out further details, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia "will not leave the aggressive actions of the U.S. unanswered."
Meanwhile, Russian leaders think that the sanctions may work in favor of the nation because it has developed "an immunity" to the restrictions over the years. Some members of the State Duma have suggested that additional foreign sanctions could incentivize making Russia's economy more resilient and competitive. "We are actively developing domestic industries and innovations, which contribute to the modernization of our economy," Member of Parliament Dmitry Belik told Ria Novosti on Wednesday.
"Despite the statement from Washington and Brussels, saying that they will tear apart the Russian economy, the country is successfully developing,” State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Telegram as he cited Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) which grew by 3.6 percent in 2023 and has increased by 5.4 percent since the beginning of 2024.
Economist Mikhail Delyagin also said that the Moscow Exchange's regulations could be revised to tackle the sanctions. "The trade can also be moved to a different platform," he suggested.
Nuke threats are not a bluff: Medvedev
The senior Russian official has previously warned that Moscow is not bluffing about its willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and said Kyiv's international "friends" are making a "fatal mistake" if they think otherwise.
This was the response of President Putin's senior official to reports that Western countries have already allowed Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia. "The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario," Medvedev wrote on Telegram. For him, such activity does not constitute military assistance to Ukraine, but rather active "participation in a war against Russia." He claimed that such actions "could well become a casus belli," a Latin phrase that means action that provokes war.
"Ukraine and its NATO allies will receive a response of such destructive force that the alliance itself simply will not be able to resist being drawn into the conflict," Medvedev said. He also stated that "retired NATO farts" who claim that Russia would never use a tactical nuclear weapon had previously "miscalculated" by asserting that Russia "would not enter into an open military conflict" with Ukraine.
"After all, as the President of Russia rightly noted, European countries have a very high population density," Medvedev said, referring to Putin's threats earlier this week amid reports that European nations would allow Kyiv to attack Russian territory with weapons they'd supplied.
Medvedev said there is also a "potential" for Russia to strike hostile countries with strategic weapons. "This is, alas, neither intimidation nor bluffing," he said. "There is a constant escalation when it comes to the firepower of NATO weapons being used. Therefore, nobody today can rule out the conflict's transition to its final stage."
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