Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council under the chairmanship of President Vladimir Putin, warned the West that an attempt to push Russia towards collapse would amount to a “chess game with death”. Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012 when term limits forced Putin to become prime minister, was widely seen in the West as more liberal than his mentor. In recent months, however, he has made remarks that have sounded far harsher than those issued by more aggressive Kremlin officials in an apparent attempt to curry favor with Putin. After attending Saturday’s farewell ceremony for former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Medvedev posted on his messaging app channel referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and accusing the US and its allies of trying to engineer its breakup. of Russia. Medvedev claimed that some in the West would like to “take advantage of the military conflict in Ukraine to push our country into a new turn of disintegration, do everything to paralyze Russia’s state institutions and deprive the country of effective checks, as happened in 1991.” “These are the dirty dreams of the Anglo-Saxon perverts, who sleep with a secret thought of breaking up our state, thinking how to tear us to pieces, cut us into small pieces.” wrote Medvedev. “Such efforts are very dangerous and should not be underestimated. These dreamers ignore a simple axiom: a violent decay of a nuclear power is always a game of chess with Death, in which it is known exactly when check and mate will come: Doomsday for mankind.’ Medvedev concluded by saying that Russia’s nuclear arsenals are “the best guarantee of safeguarding Great Russia.”
