Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia and a staunch ally of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, warned in a social media post on Friday about the potential for a “big war” with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Medvedev’s comments came in a post discussing recent military training drills held by members of NATO and Sweden that commenced in mid-January and are scheduled to run until May. The “Steadfast Defender 2024” exercise has been deemed the largest for the alliance since the days of the Cold War, with 90,000 troops participating, as well as over 50 aircraft carriers, 80 fighter jets, and 1,100 vehicles being deployed. The goal of the exercise is to “test and refine NATO’s defense plans for reinforcing European defenses against a near-peer adversary,” according to a statement from NATO.
NATO’s announcement about the operation did not mention Russia by name, though based on documents from the military alliance obtained by Reuters, Russia is viewed as the biggest security threat to its member nations. One of the primary goals of the exercise will be to “demonstrate NATO’s ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America and other parts of the alliance to reinforce the defense of Europe.”
Writing in an extended social media post on Friday on VKontakte, a Russian social media network, Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chairman for the Security Council of Russia, decried the organizers of “Steadfast Defender 2024” as “Western politicians who have s*** their pants and their mediocre generals in NATO have once again decided to scare us.”
He also claimed that Russia would never initiate a first strike against a NATO member nation, but did also claim that the country would respond to any potential aggression against its own “integrity” or increased NATO association with Ukraine, and warned of a “big war” that would follow.
“We are not going to attack any country in this bloc,” Medvedev wrote, as translated by software from Google. “All reasonable people in the West understand this. But if they play too hard and encroach on the integrity of our country, they will instantly receive an adequate response.”
He continued: “This will mean only one thing – a big war, from which NATO will no longer turn away. The same thing will happen if any NATO country begins to provide its airfields to [Stepan] Bandera’s supporters or quarters its troops with neo-Nazis. They will certainly become a legitimate target for our Armed Forces and will be mercilessly destroyed as enemies. All helmets with NATO symbols who today swaggeringly rattle their weapons not far from our borders should remember this.”
Elsewhere, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the operation “provocative in nature,” Russian state media Tass reported late last month.
“For several months, a 90,000-strong group of forces from 31 NATO member countries, as well as Sweden, will be actively operating near Russian borders on the territory from Norway to Romania,” she said. “This step is deliberately aimed at escalating things. It increases the risk of military incidents and could ultimately lead to tragic consequences for Europe.”
Newsweek reached out to NATO officials via email on Saturday for comment.
In a previous comment to Newsweek concerning another post from Medvedev about the potential of a civil war in the United States, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State dismissed the legitimacy of his talking points as “standard Kremlin nonsense.”
“We know by now not to take Medvedev seriously,” the spokesperson wrote.
