Russia will not cease its war in Ukraine until the Zelensky government is “completely obliterated” and “destroyed to the ground”, chief Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev declared.
The bellicose former Russian president seemingly expanded the mission of Moscow’s euphemistically termed “special military operation” in Ukraine to full-on regime change in Kyiv. Writing on his personal Telegram channel, Medvedev said that Russia “must not stop until the current, inherently terrorist Ukrainian state is completely dismantled.”
“It must be destroyed to the ground. Or rather, so that even the ashes from it did not remain. So that this abomination could never, under any circumstances, be reborn,” the current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia continued.
Medvedev said that Moscow is willing to continue the fight for “years or even decades” in order to “destroy their hostile political regime”. The Putin ally cast the war as an “existential conflict” for Russia, saying that it is a “war for self-preservation” and that it is “either them or us”.
He said that it is imperative for Russia to ensure “loyalty for the future” in Ukraine, otherwise “the collective West will eventually tear Russia to pieces. And in this case, they will perish with us.”
Nevertheless, Medvedev said that the “defeat of the West in Ukraine is inevitable”, saying that Western authorities and “elites” will eventually be replaced and will tire of their support for
The number of troops killed or wounded since last year’s invasion of Ukraine has reached nearly half a million, according to U.S. officials. https://t.co/rawis6TAEV
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) August 20, 2023
Medvedev has been one of the most belligerent voices on either side of the conflict, previously threatening to use nuclear bombs on anyone who opposes Russia’s war, including London and the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Just last month, the former Russian president warned that Moscow would be willing to deploy nuclear weapons against Ukraine if its summer counteroffensive was successful in recapturing territory the Kremlin now considers its own.
“If we imagine that the offensive of the [Ukrainian Nazis] with the support of NATO was successful and they seized part of our land, then we would have to… go for the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.
The latest in the war of words comes as President Zelensky was finally successful in securing commitments to receive American-made F-16 fighter jets, with both the Netherlands and Denmark pledging over the weekend to deliver some of their fleets to Kyiv in the coming months. It is unclear, however, if they will be sent in time to have any impact on the current counteroffensive, given that Ukrainian pilots have not been fully trained on how to operate the jets and the country is still lacking in terms of the technical ability to maintain F-16s.
Despite this, the commitment from the Dutch and Danish governments will likely serve as a lifeline for the Zelensky government and the Ukrainian war effort as a whole, which has been mired in brutal fighting against heavily entrenched Russian lines in the south of the country. A series of reports over the past week from Western media outlets, including the NY Times and the Washington Post, have seen unnamed U.S. officials begin to express doubt over Zelensky’s strategy and the ability of the country to successfully break through the Russian defences to recapture its territory this year.
Yet there appears to be little appetite on either side to enter into peace talks, with Kyiv baulking at suggestions from a top NATO official last week to cede some of the territory it lost in exchange for membership into the alliance. Commenting on the proposal over the weekend, President Zelensky joked that his government would be willing to “exchange” Ukraine’s membership in NATO for Belgorod, a city inside mainland Russia that has experienced attacks from pro-Ukraine paramilitary forces.
Zelensky Declares it Is ‘Absolutely Fair’ For Ukraine to Attack Targets Inside Russiahttps://t.co/PWnCKpHLw1
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 31, 2023