State-sponsored terrorism threat as a well-known Kremlin figure says British leaders are now considered legitimate military targets over the UK’s involved support for Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
Military and civilian officials of the United Kingdom engaged in aiding Ukraine are to be considered a “legitimate military target”, so says close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev in his latest tirade against the West, and anyone opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Medvedev, a former president and prime minister of Russia and ally to Vladimir Putin who now sits on the nation’s national security council is well known for his intemperate outburts, threatening to make nuclear strikes against Russia’s enemies. Several of these threats have been against the United Kingdom, which Medvedev says is one of Ukraine’s most active allies and an “eternal enemy” of Russia.
Medvedev said today, caliming to cite the “Hague and Geneva Conventions” that the United Kingdom was technically a party at war with Russia and “goofy” British politicians could expect to be attacked. He said:
Today, Great Britain is acting as an ally of Ukraine, by providing it with equipment and personnel as military assistance, that is de facto waging an undeclared war against Russia. Therefore, any of its [the UK’s] officials, both military and civilian ones, who are making a contribution to the war effort, can be viewed as a legitimate military target.
The comments came in response to the United Kingdom’s Foreign Minister James Cleverly, who said yesterday recent drone strikes against Russian territory by Ukrainian forces — although Ukraine, for their own reasons, deny being involved — were a legitimate projection of force. Russia strongly disputes this and calls the Ukrainian drone strikes terrorist attacks, despite doing exactly the same thing to Ukraine as well.
Cleverly told Russia that it was time to admit their invasion had failed, and that they should withdraw from Ukraine.
While it might be supposed Russia would be too busy to open another front in its ongoing war, the state has launched terror attacks within the United Kingdom in the recent past, including a botched attempt to assasinate a Russian defector living in Salisbury, England, with a powerful nerve agent.
While the plot to kill Sergei Skripal failed, he and several other people became ill over exposure to the Novichok nerve agent and one unconnected member of the public was killed. The agent is so powerful, the ambulances and police cars used as first response to the poisonings were buried underground rather than risk being decontaminated and put back into use.