Dmitry Medvedev, the diplomatic Russian president with provocative speeches

• The current vice-president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has been making virulent remarks for several months and the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine.

• While he gave himself a more nuanced image when he was president of the Russian Federation, why such a reversal?

  And is it really a reversal or his deep convictions that resurface?

• Two experts on the subject, Carole Grimaud, lecturer in Russian geopolitics at the University of Montpellier, and Cyrille Bret, researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute, decipher this aggressive attitude for

  20 Minutes

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Sometimes it's not Vladimir Putin who says the harshest words in Moscow.

Senior officials close to the Kremlin do it for him.

Recently, Dmitry Medvedev, current vice-president of the powerful Russian Security Council, released several diatribes of rare violence.

However, we remember a former president and then prime minister who was rather nuanced, especially concerning the United States and the West in general.

But since the start of the war in Ukraine, he is recovering on the domestic political scene.

A message questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, stating in particular that "all the peoples who once inhabited the great and powerful USSR will live together again in friendship", appeared last Tuesday on its official page on the VKontakte (VK) network, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.

The top executive then deleted the post assuring it had been hacked.

Two months earlier, on June 7, Dmitry Medvedev wrote on Telegram messaging:

I hate them.

They are bastards and degenerates.

They want death for us, for Russia.

And as long as I live, I will do everything to make them disappear”, without specifying who the precise target was.

Behavioral change or true nature?

A change in behavior, at least in appearance, which can be explained, according to Carole Grimaud, lecturer in geopolitics of Russia at the University of Montpellier, contacted by

, by the current context: "If it were more nuanced at the time of his presidency and even when he was Prime Minister, it is because he no longer has much choice".

“Today, with the context of the conflict, certain personalities who have simply declared that they prefer peace to war, or who have made nuanced remarks have been dismissed”, continues the one who also founded the think-tank Center for Russia and Eastern Europe Research (CREER) from Geneva.

But was Dmitry Medvedev such a nuanced leader?

Not for Cyrille Bret, researcher at the Jacques Delors Institute, according to whom the vice-president of the Security Council has always been a figure of the reactionary rigorous orthodox current.

"This speech is only a surprise for those who only relied on press releases" when he was at the head of the Kremlin, he explains to

.

According to the researcher, Dmitry Medvedev had this image of openness and modernity only from an economic point of view, to attract foreign investors, which "corresponded to the strategic orientation of Russia at the time".

A step towards the Kremlin?

Nevertheless, this context of the war in Ukraine facilitates, according to the researcher, the desire to manifest his convictions on the national and international scenes.

And given the turn of events, namely that Russia "has turned its back", according to Carole Grimaud, on Europe and the West, "it does not have much to lose" by showing itself under this day.

He might even win.

Because this way of adopting so openly Vladimir Putin's speech on the greatness of Russia and his nostalgia for the borders of the USSR, is a way "to affirm his loyalty to the Russian president and to signal his availability to participate in the war effort in the media field", analyzes Cyrille Bret.

Our file on the war in Ukraine

Until finding a position on the political scene?

Why not, replies the researcher, especially since Dmitri Medvedev is one of the rare politicians to be known internationally, along with the very media-savvy Sergei Lavrov [the current Minister of Foreign Affairs].

His position "very high placed, moreover, puts him in a very favorable position to reach the Kremlin", if ever Vladimir Putin decides to reorganize his close guard, or even to choose a successor, adds Carole Grimaud.

sow discord

Hacked not hacked?

As for the most recent post about “the great and mighty USSR,” regardless of whether Dmitry Medvedev actually wrote those words, the truth will probably never come out.

And this speech is in any case not a surprise.

"He is not the first nor the last to make this kind of comment praising the history of Russia and the expansion of its borders", recalls Carole Grimaud, citing in particular the Russian inclinations expressed recently concerning Alaska or the Lithuanian border.

These words have, moreover, already consequences, particularly in Georgia, where the opposition calls on the government to position itself more against Moscow.

“These remarks stir up divisions in the country and sow discord,” deciphers the specialist.

If they seem threatening for the countries bordering Russia, these words sing, on the contrary, in the ears of a certain segment of the Russian population.

The opportunity, therefore, for Dmitri Medvedev to mark his position internationally and regain a place in the political sphere.

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