The rage of Dmitry Medvedev has been noticeable. Russia’s former president was once seen as a mild-mannered politician and the vanguard of a changing Russia. Now, occupying the role of deputy head of the Russian Security Council, he’s all spite and malice towards the west.
He has been at the forefront of nuclear sabre-rattling since Russia invaded Ukraine last February. Last week he warned that western shipments of weapons to Ukraine risked provoking a ‘nuclear apocalypse’. In response to the German justice minister’s comment that Vladimir Putin would be arrested should he set foot in Germany (on the arrest warrant recently issued by the International Criminal Court), Medvedev said that would amount to ‘a declaration of war’ and Russian missiles would be launched at Germany in retaliation. He had already threatened that missiles would shower down on the Hague court should Putin be arrested.
His initial response to the ICC warrant? He tweeted: ‘No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used’ – accompanied by an emoji of a loo roll.
There have been many instances of such bellicose and derisive rhetoric from Medvedev over the past year.
The old Medvedev
This is a much-changed Medvedev. When he succeeded Putin as Russia’s president in May 2008, there were genuine hopes that the Putin era was at an end. Many looked on Medvedev as a relative liberal and, being from a generation younger than Putin, as someone not straitjacketed by a cold war mentality. This was a man who in his youth had enjoyed western rock music (his favourite band was Deep Purple), carried an iPhone and was active on social media. His interest in encouraging innovation, technology and entrepreneurship led to the creation of the Skolkovo High-Tech Park in Moscow.
Soon after Medvedev became Russia’s president, America too had a new leader in Barack Obama. One of the Obama administration’s key foreign policies was a ‘reset’ in US-Russia relations. The ‘reset’ had a mixed record, but there were achievements: the New START Treaty, the restoration of a defunct bilateral commission for cooperation, a modicum of agreement on Iran and cooperation on the war in Afghanistan.
There’s no gainsaying that it took some effort: Russia had invaded Georgia three months after Medvedev took office as president, and Republicans in Congress from the beginning were scathing of Obama’s Russia policy which they interpreted as appeasement of Russia. In so far as there was a Republican position, it was that the party did not accept that Medvedev's Russia represented any change. After the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives and this became a further obstacle for the reset policy.
But there was, in fact, something in those views of Medvedev as a more liberal figure. As Mikhail Zygar wrote in All the Kremlin’s Men: ‘Tired of being Putin’s faceless shadow, the new president [Medvedev] was eager to make his mark as an enlightened figure.’ According to Zygar, Medvedev ‘was bent on creating the image of a liberal, modern Western leader’ and ‘desperately wanted to be the Russian Obama – the epitome of the young, stylish leader.’
Moreover, Medvedev clearly possessed ideas at odds with Putin’s. One widely known example was his position on Libya in 2011, where he showed a willingness to cooperate with the US. Russia abstained from voting in the UN Security Council on Resolution 1973 – the one that authorised the use of ‘all necessary means’ to restore peace and security. Putin publicly contradicted Medvedev’s position, but Russia did not reverse its position.
What people got wrong
After four years, Putin returned to the presidency and Medvedev became prime minister (he had been first deputy prime minister prior to May 2008). These days it’s commonplace for past (and current) US officials, serving as talking heads in TV documentaries and ever keen to burnish their credentials, to claim they ‘always knew Putin was running things all along’. But at the time it was a moot point. Undoubtedly many did always think that, but there were many serious people in politics, and also in academia, who believed Medvedev marked a break from the past and could bring change to Russia.
Hindsight, of course, tells a different story. What those who thought Medvedev represented change missed was how tied up Medvedev was in the Putin elite long before either occupied the office of president. Karen Dawisha’s 2014 book Putin’s Kleptocracy – which I am belatedly reading for the first time – gives an excellent account of the connections among Putin’s inner circle, along with their histories and alleged malpractices.
In the 1990s, when Putin worked in the St Petersburg mayor’s office, Medvedev became the office's trusted lawyer called upon to resolve any legal problems. In Dawisha’s well-sourced telling, Medvedev had an office by Putin’s, to whom he provided counsel. Medvedev also provided legal advice to the various companies Putin or his associates used for their business schemes, several of which prompted legal investigations for money laundering or similar.
Still, the source of Medvedev’s present rage is a bit of a mystery. The standard view seems to be that he is burnishing his credentials with Putin, especially as any hints of liberalism have become anathema in Putin’s Russia, and there may be something in that, certainly.
My best guess, though, is that he feels cheated by the west. That he feels he tried in earnest to improve relations as president and was betrayed and feels insulted. Events in and around Ukraine seem to have brought his resentment to the surface. That is only a speculation. And I acknowledge a weakness in the surmise: Medvedev’s rage isn’t exclusively directed at foreign audiences; he has turned some ire at Russia’s arms manufacturers, quoting Stalin to them (‘If you turn out to be violators of your duty to the motherland, I will start to crush you’).
But Medvedev has the freedom to vent his anger. As deputy chair of the Security Council he is a little like a minister without a portfolio; the role did not exist prior to Putin appointing Medvedev in it. And so this is the Medvedev we see today – a roving figure with a viper’s tongue and a Twitter account.
Image credit: government.ru. Official portrait of Dmitry Medvedev (2016); used under creative commons licence 4.0. I have cropped the original image and added the red tinting.
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