Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council and former president of the Russian Federation, said on Sunday that Donald Trump might “share the fate of John F. Kennedy” if he tries to stop the Ukraine war after winning Tuesday’s election.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.
“We have no reason to expect too much. The election won’t change anything for Russia because the candidates’ positions fully reflect a bipartisan consensus on the need to defeat our country,” Medvedev said in a post on the messaging platform Telegram.
“This is why the best way to make the day for the candidates to the highest US office on November 5 is to continue crushing the Nazi Kiev regime,” he argued.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukraine is under the control of a “neo-Nazi dictatorship,” and one of the reasons he launched his brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was to “de-Nazify” the country. Russia often points to the Azov Brigade, a highly effective Ukrainian volunteer militia with a history of Nazi sympathies, as evidence for its assertions. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, has repeatedly and vehemently condemned this description of his country and administration.
Medvedev scoffed at Trump’s boast that he could end the Ukraine war if he wins the 2024 presidential election, even before he takes office.
“A tired Trump, issuing platitudes like ‘I’ll offer a deal’ and ‘I have a great relationship with…’ will also be forced to follow all the system’s rules. He won’t be able to stop the war. Not in a day, not in three days, not in three months,” Medvedev said.
“If he really tries to, he may share the fate of John F. Kennedy,” he added.
“Only one thing matters: how much money the new POTUS will knock out for someone else’s distant war – for his military-industrial complex and for the Bandera scum to cut up,” Medvedev asserted.
Stepan Bandera was a Ukrainian nationalist leader assassinated by Soviet intelligence agents in 1959. The Ukrainian government regards him as a national hero, while the Russians portray him as the godfather of neo-Nazi ideology in Ukraine.
Medvedev had nothing good to say about Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, describing her as “stupid, inexperienced, controllable, and will be afraid of everyone around her.”
“A synod of the most important ministers and assistants will rule, plus indirectly the Obama family,” he said, voicing a common theory as to who has actually been running the Biden administration for the past few years, given the mental state of the sitting president.
In an interview with Russia’s RT.com last week, Medvedev said the Ukraine war could have been avoided if Western leaders had the “wisdom” and “flexibility” to reach a comprehensive security arrangement with Russia.
“But they’re in the habit of bullying everyone into submission. They operate on a principle of American exceptionalism and the primacy of U.S. interests. This is a big mistake. You know what, I’ll say this: it will be their undoing someday,” he said.
Medvedev was alluding to the other often-claimed reason Russia invaded Ukraine, that it was nervous about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pressing up against its borders, and possibly penetrating the firewall of the old Soviet states by inducting Ukraine as a member.
Medvedev said on Saturday that bringing Ukraine into NATO could trigger World War 3. He has long been among the most belligerent of Russian officials, including threats of nuclear war if the West continues to side with Ukraine, or if President Putin is ever brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes charges.
Medvedev has previously threatened to unleash not just nuclear war, but the four horsemen of the Biblical Apocalypse, if the West supplied Ukraine with advanced missiles. In February 2024, he said that if Russia loses the Ukraine war, it would attack Berlin, London, Washington, DC, and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with nuclear weapons. In May 2024, he responded to charges of making wanton nuclear threats by insisting his threats were deadly serious, not “intimidation nor bluffing.”
