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As president, he was initially seen by the West as a potential modernizer and reformer, prepared to work to mend relations with the United States. In 2009, he signed the New START treaty on nuclear arms reduction with President Barack Obama...
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been embroiled in a heated debate on social media that prompted US President Donald Trump to announce that he had ordered the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines.
But who is Medvedev, what is his biography and how much influence does he have?
Medvedev was elected president of Russia in 2008, when Vladimir Putin, after serving two terms, was barred from running again under the law in force at the time. Medvedev led the Kremlin for four years, with Putin as prime minister but still seen by analysts in Russia and the West as holding power, before the two swapped places after the 2012 elections, a political maneuver that provoked opposition protests.
Medvedev, the son of two university professors, had studied law and worked for a time in the private sector. Short and soft-spoken, he was described by contemporaries as cultured and intelligent.
As president, he was initially seen by the West as a potential modernizer and reformer, prepared to work to mend relations with the United States. In 2009, he signed the New START treaty on nuclear arms reduction with President Barack Obama.
But Medvedev's presidency also saw Russia fight a brief war with its neighbor Georgia in 2008, and he failed to achieve his stated goals of fighting widespread corruption, improving the rule of law in Russia, strengthening the role of civil society, and rebalancing the economy away from its overreliance on oil and gas production.
Medvedev served as Putin's prime minister for eight years during a period in which tensions with the West escalated again, particularly over Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea in 2014. But his political fortunes took a sharp downturn when he was dismissed in January 2020 and replaced by Mikhail Mishustin, who has held the post ever since. Medvedev moved into a new role as deputy chairman of the Security Council, a powerful body that includes the heads of Russia's intelligence services.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev carved out a new role for himself as a fierce warrior and ardent champion of war, spewing aggressive rhetoric at Kiev and the West and repeatedly warning of the risk of a nuclear "apocalypse."
In May 2024, he said it would be a “fatal mistake” for the West to think that Russia was not ready to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
He also spoke about the potential to strike unidentified hostile countries with strategic nuclear weapons.
His statements, including personal attacks on foreign leaders, were often intended to shock, insult and provoke. He called Ukrainians "cockroaches," language that Kiev condemned as pure genocide, and called President Volodymyr Zelensky a criminal, a drug addict, a louse, a rat and a weirdo.
In January 2023, he accused Japan's prime minister of shameful submission to the United States and suggested that he should ritually undress.
Russian opposition figures have dismissed Medvedev's outbursts as pathetic and impotent. However, some Western diplomats say they provide insight into the thinking in Kremlin policy circles. So far, they have rarely provoked a direct response from Western leaders.
That changed last month when Trump rebuked Medvedev and accused him of using the "N" word after the Russian criticized U.S. airstrikes on Iran and said "a number of countries" were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads.
When Trump set a deadline for Moscow to end the war in Ukraine or face further sanctions, including on buyers of its exports, Medvedev accused him of playing a "game of ultimatums" and moving one step closer to war between Russia and the US.
Trump shot back: "Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he's still President, to be careful with his words. He's entering very dangerous territory!"
Medvedev intervened again last Thursday, saying Trump's "nervous reaction" showed that Russia was on the right track and again referring to Moscow's nuclear capabilities. Trump made his statement the next day about deploying US nuclear submarines in "the right regions", and Medvedev has not made any further statements since. /Adapted from Pamphlet from Reuters/
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