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Russia's ex-president Dmitry Medvedev: Fabulating about the "full-fledged third world war"

Photo: IMAGO/Ekaterina Shtukina / IMAGO/SNA

Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia's invasion in violation of international law for more than a year. Now Moscow is bringing up a ludicrous plan to pacify the war: the division of the country into several administrative zones.

The deputy head of the Russian Security Council, ex-President Dmitry Medvedev, outlined scenarios for the outcome of the war on Friday night. Accordingly, there would only be a prospect of peace if Russia annexed most of the neighboring country. In Medvedev's preferred variant, western regions of Ukraine would be added to several EU states and eastern Russia, while residents of the central regions would vote on joining Russia.

"Temporarily" acceptable scenario

With this outcome, "the conflict ends with sufficient guarantees that it will not be resumed in the long run," Medvedev wrote on Telegram. If, on the other hand, an independent part of Ukraine were to join the EU or NATO, a resurgence of hostilities was to be expected, "with the danger that it could quickly turn into a full-fledged third world war," claimed the confidant of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin.

In a scenario that he called "temporarily" acceptable to Moscow, Ukraine would be completely divided between EU countries and Russia in the wake of the war, while a Ukrainian government in exile would be formed in Europe.

However, Medvedev himself does not believe in a rapid implementation of this outlandish idea. Medvedev told the Russian news agency RIA that the Ukraine war could drag on for a long time in an up and down process. So there could be "three years of ceasefire, then another two years of conflict, and then everything will repeat itself again."

Threat of nuclear first strike

At the same time, the ex-president issued new threats against the West – in the event that the West were to provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons. "There are incontrovertible laws of war. When it comes to nuclear weapons, there must be a preemptive strike," he said, according to several Russian news agencies.

The threat is not new. It was only at the beginning of February that he threatened to "burn Ukraine" and criticized new arms deliveries from the United States. If the U.S. 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.

Medvedev was a former president of Russia and is considered a close confidant of the current head of state Vladimir Putin. He is his deputy chairman of the National Security Council – the body that determines Russia's foreign, security and defense policy. Russia has been waging a war of aggression in Ukraine for more than 15 months.

mrc/dpa/Reuters