23rd March 2023 – (Moscow) Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned that any attempt to arrest President Vladimir Putin after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for him would be considered a declaration of war against Russia. The ICC issued the warrant last week, accusing Putin of illegally deporting children from Ukraine. Medvedev, who serves as the deputy chairman of Putin’s security council, stated that the ICC was a “legal nonentity” that had never done anything significant. He claimed that arresting Putin would lead to a catastrophic conflict between Russia and the arresting nation.
The Kremlin has labelled the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin an “outrageously partisan decision”, but Russian officials have denied any war crimes in Ukraine. Medvedev’s hawkish stance on the issue was evident as he claimed that every delivery of foreign weapons to Ukraine brought the world closer to a nuclear apocalypse. He blamed the West for considering itself the boss of Russia after the Soviet Union’s fall in 1991 and for wanting to cleave Russia apart into a host of weaker states to steal its natural resources. He further claimed that Ukraine was part of Russia, and the West was trying to destroy Russia, which led to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Medvedev stated that relations between Russia and the West were probably at their worst point ever. As a pro-Western reformer during his presidency from 2008 to 2012, he has since become a hawkish Russian official, insulting Western leaders and issuing nuclear warnings. He added that ties with the West would improve one day, but it would take a long time. Medvedev expressed his hope that by that time, a significant number of Western leaders would have retired or passed away.