Trump orders US nuclear subs repositioned over ex-Russian leader's statements
Mr Trump posted on his social media site that based on the 'highly provocative statements' from Mr Medvedev he had 'ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that'.
The president added: 'Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.'
It was not immediately clear what impact Mr Trump's order would have on US nuclear subs, which are routinely on patrol in the world's hotspots, but it comes at a delicate moment in the Trump administration's relations with Moscow.
Mr Trump has said that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.
He cut his 50-day deadline for action to 10 days, with that window set to expire next week.
The post about the sub repositioning came after Mr Trump, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, had posted that Mr Medvedev was a 'failed former president of Russia' and warned him to 'watch his words'.
Mr Medvedev responded hours later by writing: 'Russia is right on everything and will continue to go its own way.'
Asked as he was leaving the White House on Friday evening for a weekend at his estate in New Jersey about where he was repositioning the subs, Mr Trump did not offer any specifics.
'We had to do that. We just have to be careful,' the president said. 'A threat was made, and we didn't think it was appropriate, so I have to be very careful.'
Mr Trump also said 'I do that on the basis of safety for our people' and 'we're gonna protect our people' and later added of Mr Medvedev: 'He was talking about nuclear.'
'When you talk about nuclear, we have to be prepared,' Mr Trump said. 'And we're totally prepared.'
Mr Medvedev was president from 2008 to 2012 while Russian President Vladimir Putin was barred from seeking a second consecutive term but stepped aside to let him run again.
Now deputy chairman of Russia's National Security Council, which Mr Putin chairs, Mr Medvedev has been known for his provocative and inflammatory statements since the start of the war in 2022, a U-turn from his presidency, when he was seen as liberal and progressive.
He has frequently wielded nuclear threats and lobbed insults at Western leaders on social media.
Some observers have argued that with his extravagant rhetoric, Mr Medvedev is seeking to score political points with Mr Putin and Russian military hawks.
Mr Trump and Mr Medvedev have gotten into online spats before.
On July 15, after Mr Trump announced plans to supply Ukraine with more weapons via its Nato allies and threatened additional tariffs against Moscow, Mr Medvedev posted, 'Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin. The world shuddered, expecting the consequences. Belligerent Europe was disappointed. Russia didn't care'.
Earlier this week, he wrote: 'Trump's playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10″ and added, 'He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn't Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scottish Sun
13 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
Whether you like it or not, Donald Trump has his moments – you can't help admire how gallus he is
A FEW days of Donald Trump all up in your grill and it becomes easier to see why so many Americans have bought into him. The guy was on transmit from the moment he touched down here to visit his two Scottish golf courses until the moment he left. 3 If you tune in long enough, Trump will eventually say something you agree with. Credit: AFP 3 You can't help but admire how gallus he is, writes Bill Leckie Credit: Getty And the fact is that if you tune in long enough, he'll eventually say something you agree with. Sure, you'll have to wade through a morass of childish nonsense to get there. And, yes, chances are it'll be something that bears no relation to the actual subject he's meant to be talking about. But just as a 36-handicap golfer might one day get a hole in one, so Trump has his moments that you find yourself agreeing with, whether you want to or not. Try walking the walk, Nic WEE Nicola says women politicians need to support each other more to combat the levels of abuse highlighted in a new report on gender inequality in politics. You know, the way she reacted to former Prime Minister Theresa May's coughing fit at a Tory conference by turning up on an SNP platform laughing and waving a packet of Strepsils. So, when your electorate has the attention span of an elderly goldfish, and when he repeats so much of what he says in social media snippets . . . well, no wonder he's become a master of the kind of soundbite that sways polls. It's not a healthy way for politics to go. It's the death of reasoned debate at the knifepoint of arrogant bluster. He remains the embodiment of the belief that the longer and louder you keep telling a lie, the quicker it becomes accepted as the truth. It's easy from a pond's width to wonder how someone this transparent has managed to con the world's biggest democracy not once, but twice. Then you see him in action on your own doorstep. And for all that it doesn't make him any less dislike- able, you can't help but admire how gallus he is. Donald Trump hits first ever shot at opening of new Trump North Sea links golf course Busybodies don't give us weather warnings… they give us stupidity warnings AS I write this, it's blowing a gale, but the rain's just stopped and the sun's come out. No, scrub that – it WAS sunny until halfway through that sentence, then it went back to being battleship grey overhead. And now, 40-odd words in, it's hosing down again. In other words, just another Scottish day of four seasons in the blink of an eye. The kind of day when we all used to live by the words of Billy Connolly that there's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. The kind of day, sadly, that no longer exists now we've been brainwashed into believing the world's about to end just because it's a little big windier or wetter or hotter than it's meant to be. Welcome to the era of the Weather Event, when anything above a little bit blowy needs to be called a storm and when storms need to be given names. Which is when the problems REALLY start. 3 Welcome to the era of the Weather Event, when anything above a little bit blowy needs to be called a storm Credit: Reuters See, the human brain is brilliant at dealing with everyday stuff that it keeps in its filing cabinets, stuff so normal that it becomes second nature — and in this dreich-ish little country where we live, nothing becomes more second nature-ish than dealing with the climate. Example? You look outside, it's bright and sunny. You go outside and it's deceptively Baltic. You go back in and get a jumper. It's simple as that, Or, at least, it used to be. But now? Suddenly we're losing our minds about something this basic; or, maybe more accurately, the forecasters and the government and all sorts of other busybodies are hell-bent on trying to MAKE us lose our minds. For instance, first thing yesterday there was a statement issued by a guy called Jim Dale from an organisation called British Weather Services which read: 'Remember, this is summertime — and a Bank Holiday in Scotland — so some 'summer articles' in gardens and on beaches are going to be there; slides, picnic tables, swings, all ready to by thrown around by the wind. 'That's the danger we've got at the moment. These warnings are put out for very good reason. 'If you're venturing out, keep away from the forest and keep away from the coastal plain where the sea will be coming in.' Next thing, ScotRail was putting out an appeal for us to 'secure garden furniture, trampolines and tents' so they don't 'blow onto the tracks'. I'm sorry, but these aren't weather warnings. They're STUPIDITY warnings. The perfect example of organisations nannying the life out of us, making out that we're incapable of calculating the simplest decisions that dictate our own comfort and safety. And you know what? Anyone who really is stupid enough to NEED advice like this probably deserves to become a victim of natural selection anyway. If that sounds harsh, good. Because I'm sick of this concept that we need our hand held over so many things as our brain — the most phenomenally-complex and brilliant computer that will ever exist — is somehow considered incapable of understanding what's good and bad for our health. We see it in dumb-as-a-stone food packaging, like the packet of couscous I bought the other day with a picture on the front of a bowl of couscous and the words 'serving suggestion'. We see it in trigger warnings at the start of TV shows made in the Seventies and Eighties which apparently may contain content that doesn't align with how we see things in 2025. We hear it in the pointless apologies from telly and radio sports commentators when an effects microphone picks up some 'bad' language. That one really gets me. I mean, is it really anything we don't hear every day? Can we not make our own minds up about whether we approve or disapprove, about whether or not we want to tut and switch off? Plus, where's the sense in apologising for something that the commentator isn't responsible for? It's all part of this idiotic, scared-of-their-own-shadows attitude that's sweeping through society and which looms over us darker than ever whenever one of these 'weather events' comes around. This isn't to say that Storm Whatever-They-Called-It didn't cause a lot of people some inconvenience, that it didn't disrupt travel or force events to be cancelled or leave damage in its wake. All I'm saying is that this is what the weather's always done, right back to the dawn of time. And that not only have we always survived, but we've learned from it and developed new and better ways of coping. You just wouldn't think so from the way we're mollycoddled through this sort of — and I'm a little sick in my mouth even writing the word — crisis. We're resilient, us humans. Most of us want to get to work no matter what, to push ahead with our leisure plans, to keep the world turning. And 99.999 per cent of us tend not to play frisbee with trampolines near railway lines. But whereas throughout history it's been down to the other 0.001 per cent of the population to either learn NOT to do stupid things or suffer the consequences, today we're all judged by their lack of basic common sense. Anyway, I'm away for the messages now. In shorts, a parka, flip-flops and a balaclava. Because it's great being Scottish. And a little bit mental.
Daily Mirror
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Russia doomsday missile launch fears grow amid warning invasion NATO states is 'realistic'
Vladimir Putin has shut the airspace where Russia carries out tests on multiple new missiles as fears grow over the use of a 'game-changing weapon' following a previous test Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed the airspace over the missile test site from which he launched his notorious new doomsday Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine last year. This week's closure happens as his former speechwriter predicts the Kremlin dictator will go to war against NATO in the Baltics. Airspace is now shut around the Kapustin Yar site when the nation carries out tests on multiple new missiles, but it is unclear if the current closure from 4 to 8 August is linked to another imminent Oreshnik launch. Putin has only used the 'game-changing weapon' once - in a 'test' launch in November 2024 against Ukrainian city Dnipro, without a live warhead. The Russians claim Oreshnik is unstoppable by current Western and Ukrainian defences. It comes after a lip reader revealed exactly what Donald Trump and Keir Starmer said to each other on the golf course. New tests are expected and Putin says Oreshnik is now 'up and running' in serial production, with the missile complex due to be supplied to his ally Belarus later this year. 'We have produced the first serial Oreshnik system,' said Putin on 1 August. 'The first serial missile. It has been delivered to the army.' An announcement on 4 August by the Russian foreign ministry that it was abandoning a moratorium on deploying medium- and short-range missiles may be linked to Oreshnik. 'The conditions for keeping the one-sided moratorium on deploying similar weapons are gone and the Russian Federation no longer feels tied to the self-imposed restrictions it agreed to before,' said the ministry. Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev said: 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.' Putin claims targets would be incinerated, by Oreshnik missiles unleashing a temperature of 4,000C, almost as hot as the surface of the sun. Russian state media has said that an Oreshnik launch from Belarus could hit London in eight minutes. From its current test launch base in southern Russia, it would take around 20 minutes. Russia issued a NOTAM - notice to airmen - restricting airspace over Kapustin Yar in its southern Astrakhan region. The flight ban is due to stay in place until Friday - the day Trump's Ukraine deadline expires when the US president will likely have to respond to a Putin failure to engage with a ceasefire and peace moves. Airspace was similarly closed at Kapustin Yar in May but without an Oreshnik launch. Tests on multiple other missiles could be underway at Kapustin Yar. Separately, ex-Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said a Russian invasion of the Baltic states is now 'realistic'. He told We Can Explain media that Putin 'may tell himself that since it is not possible to solve the problem of Ukraine per se, it must be made part of a more global deal between Russia and the West. 'Or even between the Second and First Worlds. He may decide that this will allow him to avoid the feeling of defeat [in failing to grab the whole of Ukraine].' Opening this 'new front' would 'create huge problems for [Donald] Trump personally. Trump frequently says that the conflict in Ukraine was 'not my war', blaming predecessor Joe Biden for allowing it to start during his presidency. A Putin 'invasion' of the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - could 'no longer be described as 'not my war' which 'wouldn't have happened if I were president', said Gallyamov. New Russian aggression 'would be considered a personal failure' for Trump - who he accused of appeasing Putin - 'in the same way that Hitler's attack on Poland was considered a failure of [UK premier Neville] Chamberlain, which shamefully ended his previously quite respectable career.' Gallyamov said: 'Perhaps this is precisely why Trump has suddenly hardened his position. 'He feels that Putin, under pressure from 'patriotic' expectations, will soon be ready for a new adventure, and wants to stop him before it happens. 'The American leader is trying to show his Russian counterpart that he should not underestimate him. Like, I'm determined and if necessary, I can hit.'
Daily Mirror
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
MIKEY SMITH: 7 unhinged Donald Trump moments as he gets really weird about Sydney Sweeney
Trump took to the airwaves this morning, spouting a torrent of untruths in lengthy and increasingly unhinged rants Donald Trump has returned from another weekend of golf - and jumped straight into a day of lies, falsehoods and being weird about young women. Not satisfied with firing the head of a government body that delivered some statistics he didn't like, Trump took to the airwaves this morning, spouting a torrent of untruths in lengthy and increasingly unhinged rants. Also, he's being weird about Sydney Sweeney in perhaps the most predictable turn of events in his Presidency so far. It comes after he made a major change to the White House that people are very upset about. Here's everything that's happened in Trump World in the last 24 hours that you need to know about. Deep breaths, we're going in. 1. Donald Trump keeps telling you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears Trump is still fuming about those job numbers that were published on Friday. You remember, the ones that were so bad that Trump decided to shoot the messenger and fire the head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). Erika McEntarfer was confirmed as commissioner of the BLS last year, with the Senate voting in favour by 86 to 8. She was a credible, career public servant who just happened to have been hired during the Biden administration. And because Trump didn't like the numbers her organisation announced on Friday, he smeared her as a political operative and accused her baselessly of essentially committing fraud. He claimed the numbers were "RIGGED in order to make the Republicans and ME, look bad." And on the tarmac at Allentown airfield in Pennsylvania, as he switched between Marine One and Air Force One, Trump indicated he was still fuming. "The numbers were ridiculous, that she a scam, in my opinion. In my opinion it's just additional scam." 2. Trump has some thoughts about Sydney Sweeney You will be delighted to learn that 79-year-old convicted felon and, according to a New York Court, sex abuser Donald Trump has some thoughts about 27 year old actor Sydney Sweeney. It follows the definitely not confcted discourse carnage after she featured in an American Eagle advert with the slogan "Sydney Sweeney has great genes". While people were working out whether the ads were a bit Nazi, or just thirsty, someone looked her up and found she was a registered Republican. Well, someone told Trump that during a huddle on the tarmac and he "She's a registered Republican?" he said. "Ohhh, now I love her ad. Is that right? Is Sydney Sweeney? I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. "If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic." He went on to describe the ad as "the "HOTTEST" ad out there" on Truth Social, and compared it to the "TOTAL DISASTER" of Jaguar's "WOKE" rebrand. Then, for some reason he brought up Taylor Swift. "Just look at Woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying on TRUTH that I can't stand her (HATE!). She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became NO LONGER HOT" None of these things are true. 3. Democrats flee Texas so Trump can't rig the midterms Meanwhile, Democrats in Texas have literally fled the state to avoid Trump's Republicans re-drawing the constituency map to rig the mid-term elections. The Republican-dominated House was unable to establish the quorum of lawmakers required to do business. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made threats about removing members who are absent from their seats. And the House quickly issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats and Abbott ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them, but lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities. Trump, calling into CNBC this morning, was pretty straightforward about what the aim of the gerrymandering is. "We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats..." He said. "I got the highest vote in the history of Texas as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats." 4. Obama and co to face a Grand Jury Trump is delighted to hear that a Grand Jury will be set up to consider the harebrained conspiracy nonsense the Justice Department keep pumping out making unsubstantiated claims of election interference and manufacturing intelligence, neither of which are actually crimes. Even if they found a crime to claim was committed - say, obstruction of justice - the statute of limitations is 5 years on that, so they'd be SOL with that too. It's almost like this isn't actually about indictments and prosecutions, and all about trying to steal news cycles away from Jeffrey Epstein. Either way, Trump is delighted. "You've talked how you want success, not retribution," CNBC host Joe Kernan said, incredibly charitably. "The DOJ is now tapping a grand jury to look into the intelligence community's assessment of what was happening with Russia. "You have nothing to do with directing that?" "Nope," Trump replied. "I have nothing to do with it. I will tell you this, they deserve it. I was happy to hear it." 5. 'We can't relitigate that' In the same interview, Trump repeatedly lied about the 2020 election being "rigged", which countless court cases and investigations have proved it was not. Still, the best Kernan could do was to tell the President: "We can't relitigate that". 6. Trump says he'd "like to run again" Trump said (again) that he got the highest numbers in the history of Texas - adding: "A record that won't be beat unless I run again..." Asked if he was going to run again, which would be illegal, Trump said: " not." Of course, he couldn't just leave that hanging. "I'd like to..." He added. 7. ...and he keeps lying about his numbers - even when challenged Then he went into an unhinged (and entirely untrue) rant about how his numbers are the best he's ever had, and that his approval is up in the 70s. "I have the best poll numbers I ever had," he said. Kernen, to his credit, corrected the President, saying his numbers are only good "among Republicans". "No. I'm talking about generally," Trump insisted. Kernen (sigh)... said: "Your haters cite polls that have you down in the 30s." To be clear, it's not just the "haters" who have Trump down in the 30s. It's people who are at all interested in facts and reality. "They're fake polls," Trump retorted. "You also have me in the 70s." He also went on at length about a segment CNN analyst Harry Enten presented a day earlier, where he "went crazy about how well Trump was doing." The segment he was referring to - which has generated a huge number of complaints to CNN - saw Enten declare Trump "the most influential President" this century. Didn't say anything about his poll numbers, though. So where are Trump's numbers? Get Donald Trump updates straight to your WhatsApp! As the world attempts to keep up with Trump's antics, the Mirror has launched its very own US Politics WhatsApp community where you'll get all the latest news from across the pond. We'll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in. All you have to do to join is click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group. We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Well, according to The New York Times' poll of polls, he's averaging 44%, which is the second worst of any President at this point in their term. Who was the worst? He was, in his first term. Is he less popular than Joe Biden? You bet he is. On Day 198 of his presidency, Biden was +9 approve. Trump is +9 disapprove. And the most recent polls are pretty eye-watering. YouGov's poll, published today, sees Trump hit an astonishing +14 points net disapprove - with his approval on just 41%. And another published this week by Leger had the same net +14 disapprove, with just 37% of those polled saying they approved of his performance.
