Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday told US President Donald Trump to be aware that Moscow has Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities in a last resort after Trump told Medvedev to “watch your words”.
In a post on his social media account on Thursday morning, Trump singled out Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, for sharp criticism after Medvedev said Trump’s threat of punitive tariffs on Russia and its oil buyers was “an ultimatum game” and a step closer to war between Russia and the United States.
“Tell Medvedev, the failed former president of Russia, who thinks he’s still president, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!” Trump wrote, in his second warning to President Vladimir Putin’s close ally in recent weeks.
On July 29, Trump said Russia had “ten days from today” to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine or face tariffs, along with its oil buyers.
Moscow, which has set its own conditions for peace, which Kiev says require its capitulation, has so far shown no sign of meeting Trump’s deadline.
Trump said in a post on Thursday that he did not care what India – one of Russia’s biggest oil buyers, along with China – did to Russia.
“We can destroy our dead economies together, as far as I’m concerned. We have done very little business with India, their tariffs are too high, among the highest in the world. Also, Russia and the United States do almost no business together. Let it stay that way,” he said.
Medvedev said Trump’s statement showed that Russia should continue on its current political course.
“If some words of a former Russian president cause such a nervous reaction in the high-powered president of the United States, then Russia is doing everything right and will continue on its path,” Medvedev said in a post on Telegram.
Trump should remember, he argued, “how dangerous the legendary ‘Dead Hand’ can be,” referring to a secret semi-automatic Russian command system designed to launch Russian nuclear missiles if its leadership were destroyed in a devastating enemy attack.
Medvedev has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most vocal anti-Western hawks since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022.
Kremlin critics deride him as an irresponsible loose cannon, though some Western diplomats say his statements give a taste of the thinking in the Kremlin’s top policymakers.
