Russian President Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev attend a meeting with government officials in Moscow, Russia, January 15, 2020. Sputnik/Dmitry Astakhov/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
LONDON, March 23 – One of President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned the United States on Wednesday that the world could be headed for a nuclear dystopia if Washington proceeds with what the Kremlin is portraying as a long-term conspiracy to destroy Russia .
Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said the United States had conspired to destroy Russia as part of a “primitive game” since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“It means that Russia must be humiliated, limited, crushed, divided and destroyed,” Medvedev, 56, said in a 550-word statement.
The views of Medvedev, once considered one of the least hawkish members of Putin’s circle, provide a glimpse of the mindset inside the Kremlin as Moscow faces its biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The United States has repeatedly stated that it does not want Russia to collapse and that its own interests are best served by a prosperous, stable, and open Russia.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of normal business hours.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands, displaced nearly 10 million and raised fears of a major confrontation between Russia and the United States – the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Putin says the operation was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow needed to defend itself against Ukraine’s “genocide” of Russian speakers. Ukraine thinks Putin’s genocide claims are nonsense.
Medvedev said the Kremlin would never allow Russia’s destruction, but warned Washington that if he achieved what he described as his destructive goals, the world could face a dystopian crisis that would end in a “huge nuclear explosion.”
He also painted a picture of a post-Putin world that would follow the collapse of Russia, which has more nuclear warheads than any other country.
Destroying the world’s largest country by area, Medvedev said, could result in an unstable leadership in Moscow “with a maximum number of nuclear weapons aimed at targets in the United States and Europe.”
Russia’s collapse, he said, would result in five or six nuclear-armed states on the Eurasian landmass ruled by “freaks, fanatics and radicals.”
“Is this a dystopia or a crazy prediction of the future? Is it pulp fiction? No,” said Medvedev.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Edited by Jon Boyle and Philippa Fletcher