Long-time Putin ally Dimitry Medvedev has warned Russia would easily defeat French forces if they were sent to Ukraine, with a chilling warning that they would be sent back home in coffins.
The former Russian President issued the latest in a series of reckless military boasts on Wednesday, in response to claims made the previous day by Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), who claimed France was preparing to deploy as many as 2,000 troops to Ukraine.
The French Ministry of Defense dimissed the claim as another example of “systematic disinformation” from the Kremlin, but Mevedev, who rarely misses an opportunity to threaten Kyiv’s allies, sardonically claimed he welcomed French forces being sent to Ukraine.
Writing on his Telegram channel, Medvedev said: “Actually, for the success of our cause, it would be nice if the restless French dispatched a couple of regiments to Banderaland [a pejorative term for Ukraine].
“It would be very problematic to hide such a number of servicemen, so systematically eliminating them would not be the most difficult task, but surely the most important one. But just think of the beneficial knock-on effect!”
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Medvedev, who was Russia’s President between 2008 and 2012, has made several inflammatory remarks towards Ukraine’s allies during Russia-Ukraine conflict, including threats of unleashing nuclear war.
Earlier this month, he delivered a worrying speech, claiming that “Ukraine is definitely Russia” and unveiling a new map that redraws the borders to reflect his vision of a territorially expanded Russia.
“Our geostrategic space has been indivisible since the time of the ancient Russian state,” Medvedev said during his speech, presenting a map that depicted the vast majority of Ukraine’s territory incorporated into Russia.
Medvedev’s latest threat comes as Russia fired more than two dozen missiles at Kyiv before dawn on Thursday, attacking the Ukrainian capital for the first time in six weeks and sending panicked residents flooding into the relative safety of the subway system in a scene reminiscent of the first weeks of the war.
Russia has attacked civilian areas since the war started in February 2022 in an apparent effort to demoralize Ukrainians and break their will to fight.
Ukraine continues to frustrate Putin’s forces two years on, but Kyiv officials have made repeated warnings that their resources are stretched thin and that they need considerably more Western weapons if they are to keep Russia at bay.
