Commenting late on Tuesday as the first day of the NATO summit in Lithuania wrapped up, Medvedev said that pledges of military aid from the Western defence alliance to Kyiv would not deter Russia from achieving its goals in Ukraine. Russia’s foreign minister issued similar warnings that Moscow had no intention to end its war.
“The completely crazy West could not come up with anything else … In fact, it’s a dead end. World War Three is getting closer,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“What does all this mean for us? Everything is obvious. The special military operation will continue with the same goals,” he said, using the official Russian name for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev, who had cast himself as a liberal moderniser when he was Russian president from 2008-2012, has more recently presented as a fiercely anti-Western Kremlin hawk. In January, he threatened that defeat in a conventional war in Ukraine could lead to a nuclear war. Diplomats say his views give an indication of thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite.
According to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, Medvedev also said that Moscow’s goal of preventing the “neo-Nazi group” in Kyiv from joining NATO was now “impossible” and removing the Ukrainian government was necessary.
