2023-05-26 22:47:00
Russia will only be ready for a lasting peace in Ukraine if it absorbs most of the attacked neighboring country. The deputy head of the Russian Security Council, ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, has now outlined three possible scenarios for the outcome of the war.
In his preferred variant, western regions of Ukraine would be ceded to several EU countries and eastern regions to Russia, while residents of the central areas voted to join Russia.
With this outcome, “the conflict will end with sufficient guarantees that it will not resume in the long term,” Medvedev wrote in the online service Telegram. If, on the other hand, a remaining independent part of Ukraine were to join the European Union or NATO, a resumption of hostilities was to be expected, “with the risk that it might quickly turn into a full-fledged third world war,” Medvedev claimed.
A confidant of Putin
The 57-year-old was President of Russia from 2008 to 2012, then Prime Minister until 2020 and is considered a close confidant of the current head of state Vladimir Putin. He is his deputy chairing the National Security Council – the body that determines Russia’s foreign, security and defense policy.
In a “temporarily” acceptable scenario for Moscow, according to Medvedev, Ukraine would be completely divided between EU countries and Russia in the course of the war, while a Ukrainian government in exile would be formed in Europe. Variants other than these three are not realistic, Medvedev claimed. “Everyone is aware of that” – even if some in the West are “uncomfortable” to admit this, he wrote. Medvedev described Ukraine as a “dying state” that would collapse as a result of a lost military conflict.
Threat of pre-emptive strike
Apparently, however, Medvedev himself does not believe that these absurd ideas will be implemented quickly. He told the Russian news agency Ria that the war in Ukraine might drag on for a long time with ups and downs. There might be “three years of truce, then another two years of conflict, and then everything will repeat itself”.
At the same time, the former Russian president issued new threats once morest the West – in the event that the United States and Europe should make nuclear weapons available to Ukraine. “There are immutable laws of war. When it comes to nuclear weapons, there has to be a pre-emptive strike,” Medvedev said, according to several Russian news agencies.
The threat is not new. Only in early February did he threaten to “burn Ukraine” and criticize new arms deliveries from the United States. “If the United States wants Russia to be defeated, then we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including nuclear weapons,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram at the time.
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