From president to provocateur: The long journey of Russia's Dmitry Medvedev

CNN

3 days ago

Dmitry Medvedev has traveled a long way from his time as Russian president, when he once stood beside then-US President Barack Obama and declared that 'the solution of many world problems depends on the joint will of the United States and Russia.'
This week, in his semi-official role as Kremlin attack dog, Medvedev twice suggested that the administration of President Donald Trump was pushing the US and Russia towards war and warned of Russia's nuclear capabilities, after Trump suggested he would apply new sanctions on Russia.
While Medvedev is the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, he wields no executive power. But his provocative comments this week still made a splash.
Medvedev said on Telegram Thursday that Trump should picture the apocalyptic television series 'The Walking Dead,' and referred to the Soviet capacity for launching automatic nuclear strikes.
The US president responded Friday by ordering two nuclear submarines to move to 'the appropriate regions.'
The skirmish comes after Trump set a new deadline for Putin to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, threatening US sanctions if a ceasefire was not agreed upon – an ultimatum that the Kremlin is unlikely to heed.
Medvedev cuts a different figure today than when he became Russian president at the age of 42. He was qualified as a lawyer with no connections to the security services, unlike current leader Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent. Comfortable with the internet – again, unlike Putin – he was eager to modernize Russia's economy and tackle corruption.
But his presidency was seen as a stop-gap, a way for Putin to side-step constitutional limits and retain power.
Since stepping down as president in 2012 to allow Putin to return to the post, Medvedev has transformed himself from a relatively liberal technocrat into an uber-nationalist, taunting Russia's adversaries with provocative social media posts.
Just compare what he said in a CNN interview in 2009 – that Russia needed 'to have good, developed relations with the West in all senses of the word,' to this comment in May: 'Regarding Trump's words about Putin 'playing with fire' and 'really bad things' happening to Russia. I only know of one REALLY BAD thing — WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!'
That shift appears to have begun following his presidency, when Medvedev began repositioning himself in an effort to retain the confidence of the ruling United Russia party.
In 2012, he told lawmakers: 'They often tell me, 'You're a liberal.' I can tell you frankly: I have never had liberal convictions.'
As president, Medvedev had told CNN that 'the level of corruption is categorically unacceptable.' But later, when prime minister, he was the target of an investigation by opposition figure Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation that claimed he had amassed a 'corruption empire' of lavish properties, luxury yachts, and vineyards across Russia.
Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, dismissed the investigation, which quickly garnered 14 million views on YouTube, as a 'propagandistic outburst,' but Medvedev became a target of street protests.
In 2020, he abruptly resigned as prime minister as Putin embarked on a constitutional overhaul to cement his grip on power.
Since then, from his seat on the Security Council, he has launched a stream of xenophobic and offensive attacks on Ukrainians and Western leaders. Medvedev has 1.7 million subscribers on Telegram, as well as Russian and English X accounts with a total of nearly 7 million followers.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Medvedev referred to Kyiv's leadership as 'cockroaches breeding in a jar.'
In a speech earlier this year, Medvedev featured an image depicting Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Muppets and urged the 'destruction of the Kyiv neo-Nazi regime.'
He frequently conjures up the specter of Nazism, saying this year that new German chancellor Friedrich Merz had 'suggested a strike on the Crimean Bridge. Think twice, Nazi!'
And he's not afraid of rattling the nuclear saber, saying in 2022 that 'the idea of punishing a country that has one of the largest nuclear capabilities is absurd and potentially poses a threat to the existence of humanity.'
Medvedev also rejoices in ad hominem attacks. Last month he taunted Trump with a social media post warning: 'Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road,' a reference to Trump's own description of former President Joe Biden.
Despite his outlandish rhetoric, Medvedev has played a calculated role in the Kremlin's messaging, according to analysts.
The Institute for the Study of War says he is used to 'amplify inflammatory rhetoric designed to stoke panic and fear among Western decision-makers,' as part of 'a top-down, concerted Kremlin informational strategy.'
But commentators say he should not be taken literally.
Referring to this week's back and forth, Anatol Lieven at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft described both Medvedev's remarks and Trump's response as 'pure theatrics.'
'Having refrained from the use of nuclear weapons over the past three years, Russia is obviously not going to launch them in response to a new round of US sanctions,' Lieven said.
At that news conference with Obama back in 2009, Medvedev was a confident, freshly minted president who saw himself as much more than a placeholder for Putin. He said that day: 'We do have the major nuclear arsenals and we have full responsibility for those arsenals.'
Sixteen years later, he has the freedom of the provocateur.