Trump tells Russian official to ‘watch his words,' but he bites back instead

Boston Globe

31-07-2025

It was the second time this summer that Trump and Medvedev, Russia's head of state from 2008 to 2012, traded blows on social media.
The exchanges have been striking not only for the verbal brinkmanship on display between the world's nuclear superpowers, but also for the mismatched stature of the figures involved. While Trump commands the world's most powerful military, Medvedev is widely seen as a social-media attack dog relegated to the periphery of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
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The viciousness of the overnight exchange highlighted the volatility and opacity of a geopolitical relationship in which Trump and Putin set policy largely on their own. And it put on display the combustible mix that can occur when the Kremlin's long-standing willingness to use nuclear threats meets Trump's penchant for late-night diatribes on the internet. Hanging in the balance is the future of Ukraine, three years into Russia's full-scale invasion.
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'In wars, traditionally diplomatic messaging is something that's done with a lot of care and discipline,' said Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University in Washington who specializes in the US-Russia relationship. 'The consequences of screwing up can be so huge.'
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Nuclear saber-rattling by Medvedev and by Putin himself was a common feature earlier in Russia's invasion, as the Kremlin sought to deter the Biden administration from supporting Ukraine. Putin tamped down that rhetoric after Trump took office, hoping to take advantage of his Russia-friendly stance.
But as Trump grew frustrated with Putin's unwillingness to budge on Ukraine, the language from Moscow has begun to shift again. Putin himself has said nothing about Trump's recent threats of new sanctions, and the Russian president's spokesperson has said little but acknowledged that the Kremlin is paying attention. Others, like Medvedev, have taken a harder line.
'Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,' Medvedev posted on the social platform X on Monday, in English, after Trump warned that he could impose new sanctions in as little as 10 days.
Evoking the US presidential campaign, in which Trump criticized President Joe Biden as risking World War III, Medvedev added: 'Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!'
The use of Trump's derogatory moniker for his predecessor reflects what some analysts believe to be the Kremlin's bet that Trump's core supporters will prevail on him to avoid escalating America's conflict with Russia.
Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science at the European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, said there was something symbiotic about Trump and Medvedev fighting on social media. Medvedev, who had styled himself as a pro-Western liberal when he served as president more than a decade ago, has recast himself as an uncompromising soldier in Russia's showdown with the West.
But attacking Medvedev may also be useful to Trump, Golosov posited, by allowing him to show he's getting tough on Russia without attacking Putin directly. In June, Trump attacked Medvedev for saying countries could send nuclear warheads to Iran, adding: 'I guess that's why Putin's 'THE BOSS.''
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'Trump wants to criticize someone in Russia,' Golosov said, but is still hoping to make a deal with Putin over Ukraine. Medvedev, he added, 'is the perfect target.'
Medvedev is active on social media in a way that Putin and most other senior Russian officials are not. Medvedev set up a Twitter account in 2010 on a visit to Silicon Valley, when he was president and positioning himself as a tech-forward, reformist leader.
Long a loyal ally of Putin, Medvedev ceded the presidency back to him in 2012. Putin removed Medvedev from the prime minister post in a government reshuffle in 2020 and gave him the largely symbolic role of vice chair of the Russian Security Council.
After Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev accelerated his reinvention as a far-right hawk, often threatening nuclear apocalypse more explicitly than did Putin and his spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov.
Analysts of Russian politics say that Medvedev's reinvention came in part out of necessity because his past reputation as a liberal made him vulnerable amid the wartime power struggles within the ruling elite. But his social-media hostility is almost certainly blessed by the Kremlin, analysts say, because it amplifies the threat of Russia's nuclear arsenal and helped Putin style himself as a relative moderate.
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