Medvedev’s Rant: ‘The Existence of Ukraine Is Mortally Dangerous’

Medvedev’s Rant: ‘The Existence of Ukraine Is Mortally Dangerous’

Published |Updated

Alexander J. Motyl

Russia’s former leader Dmitry Medvedev, a Vladimir Putin ally who is now deputy chairman of the country’s security council, visits the Prudboy range in the Volgograd region, southern Russia, on June 1, 2023. YEKATERINA SHTUKINA/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images

If anyone still harbors doubts about the irrelevance of NATO’s enlargement to Russia’s war against Ukraine or about Russia’s genocidal aims in that war, by all means read Dmitry Medvedev’s latest Telegram tirade.

Russia’s former president and prime minister, a man rumored to love a drop too many to drink and inclined to make extremely reckless statements about the permissibility, even inevitability, of Russia’s first use of nuclear weapons, may have outdone himself.

Medvedev has declared war on Ukrainians — as a nation and as a state. Without mincing words, he states explicitly that Russia will always wage war against Ukraine until its “inhabitants” realize the folly of their belief that they actually constitute a separate people with their own language, culture, interests, and government. Without any hemming and hawing, “Mad Dog Medvedev,” as he should be known, declares that Ukrainians will be subjected to genocide if they refuse to join Russia.

He starts with the following outrageous claim: “The existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians. And I don’t mean only the current state … .  I’m talking about any, absolutely any, Ukraine.”

In other words, according to Medvedev, their own existence is the existential threat Ukrainians face! Even the Sophists wouldn’t have been able to outdo Medvedev’s bizarre logic.

“Why?” he asks. Because “The presence of an independent state on historically Russian territories will be a constant pretext for the resumption of military actions.” Not by Ukraine, mind you; by Russia.

Notice that Medvedev views Ukraine’s mere presence as a threat to Russia — not because Ukraine is pro-Western, not because it’s democratic, and certainly not because it hopes to join the European Union and NATO. “Absolutely any Ukraine” presumably will compel Russia to resume war. When? “The likelihood of a new battle will remain for an indefinitely long time. Practically forever. Moreover, there is a hundred-percent probability of a new conflict, regardless of which pieces of paper concerning security the West may sign with the puppet Kyiv regime.”

Even Ukraine’s joining the EU and NATO won’t stop Russia from waging war, Medvedev states. “That could happen in ten years or fifty.” In any case, Russia’s hostility will exist “practically forever” — which is a pretty long time.

Poor, poor Russia! According to Medvedev’s otherworldly understanding, it can’t possibly tolerate the existence of Ukraine and is therefore forced to wage war and kill Ukrainians. It doesn’t matter at all whether Ukraine is or is not in the EU or NATO. (Did you hear that, o, neorealists?) All that matters is that Ukraine and Ukrainians are “artificial” and don’t deserve to exist outside Russia.

Lest you think that Medvedev doesn’t really mean the physical destruction of Ukrainians as real, live people, read his concluding words: “Choosing between eternal war and inevitable death and life, the vast majority of Ukrainians … will ultimately choose life. They will understand that life in a large common state, which they do not like very much now, is better than death. Their deaths and the deaths of their loved ones. And the sooner Ukrainians realize this, the better.”

Perhaps Medvedev’s mad outburst is only his? No such luck. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his henchmen could easily repudiate this, or his previously unhinged statements, but they haven’t. And that’s probably because they use Medvedev as a trial balloon: That way, they retain plausible deniability if he gets lambasted, or can claim credit and foresight if he does not.

What’s clear is that Medvedev’s comments brook no alternative explanation. He, and the regime he represents, wants to exterminate the Ukrainians — with or without the EU and NATO. Medvedev’s vituperations are rooted in an irrational hatred of Ukraine, not in a rational fear of the West or its civilizational values. Unfortunately, there is every reason to think that that irrationality and that hatred are as widespread within the Russian people as they are within the Russian elites. Medvedev is not alone. He stands for the collective Mad Dog Medvedev that dominates Russian propaganda, ideology, and political culture.

Can one negotiate about anything with an elite who shares Medvedev’s perverted view of the world? Is peace possible with a state that announces it will fight forever, if that’s what it takes to kill Ukrainians? Will a ceasefire with such a country do anything but enable it to prepare for the next assault?

Medvedev’s is a “final solution” of Russia’s hated “Ukrainian question.” Medvedev, and not the Ukrainians he wants to see dead, is effectively a Nazi, while his apologists — the collective Medvedev — within Russia and the West are, by logical extension, Nazi sympathizers.

That’s the one good thing about Mad Dog Medvedev’s rant. It won’t embarrass the apologists and sympathizers. But by making what’s at stake in the war crystal clear, it exposes the Victor Orbans, Robert Ficos, Tucker Carlsons, and Donald Trumps of the world as being on the wrong side of history — together with the originator of the first final solution.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”