Tensions between Russia and the United States are now worse than they were at the height the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vladimir Putin’s close ally Dmitry Medvedev has warned.
The 1962 showdown, triggered by the discovery by a US spy-plane that the Soviet United was in the process of basing nuclear weapons on the Caribbean island, is generally regarded as the closest the world has come to nuclear war.
But Dmitry Medvedev, speaking to delegates at the World Youth Festival in Moscow today, claimed the current risk was even greater, with Russia furious at the West for supplying Ukraine with weapons following Putin’s invasion of February 24, 2022.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s President himself between 2008 and 2012, as well as Prime Minister from 2012 to 2020, declared: “I’ll say one bitter thing that today’s situation is much worse than the 1962 crisis.
“This is a full-out war being waged against Russia using US weapons and involving US special task forces and US advisers.”
The West was well aware of what Medvedev referred to as “Russia’s strategic borders” yet “ignored ages-old rules and staged a geopolitical intervention, first in Georgia, then in Ukraine.”
He continued: “And we are witnessing similar attempts in Moldova and Central Asian countries.
“Fortunately, Central Asian governments show restraint and wisdom as they understand everything only too well and pursue far-sighted policies.”
Medvedev, who is now Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, accused “America and its satellites” of attempting to “spread their strategic border to almost every region of the world”.
He said: “Under the pretext of spreading democracy, they initiate wars across the entire planet.
“Meanwhile, their goal is transparent: money-making, this is what this is all about.
“They seek to impose their own values and customs everywhere, they seek advisors, they put convenient rulers into power.
“If not an outright war, then robbery under the guise of economic assistance; if not coups – although they have become really good at it during the 20th century – then constant pressure and loan clutches, lies and hypocrisy. Everywhere, and at an unthinkable scale.
“Even the remote Central Asia, the mountains of Transcaucasia, the waters of Black and Caspian Seas, the sands of the Middle East – the Americans somehow have business in all these regions.
“Their unhealthy geopolitical appetite, their political bulimia, if you will, has long turned into an unbridled gluttony.”
Commenting on the 58-year-old’s fiery rhetoric, John Kennedy, a research leader at the RAND Corporation in the RAND Europe division, told Express.co.uk: “Medvedev’s role as Deputy Chairman of the National Security Council – following his move from Prime Minister – gives him responsibility for setting out and amplifying the regime’s justification for the so-called special military operation.
“His language has been defiant and aggressive since the invasion of Ukraine.
“It is also notably propagandistic and, in this respect, will be very familiar stylistically to many Russians but also serve a practical role by shaping their understanding of official state policy.
“As a result, Medvedev’s comments should be read seriously, but we should pay equal attention to others within the regime too, and of course Putin above all.”
