Medvedev: U.S. Sanctions on Russia ‘Full-Fledged Economic War,’ Trump ‘Utterly Powerless’

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Wednesday that new U.S. sanctions constitute the “declaration of a full-fledged economic war on Russia,” a phrase translated by many Western media outlets as “full-scale trade war.”

Medvedev made this declaration in a fiery Facebook post, presented in both Russian and English. He said the sanctions bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump “ends hopes for improving our relations with the new U.S. administration.”

Much of Medvedev’s rant consists of invective against Trump, who he said displayed “total weakness by handing over executive power to Congress in the most humiliating way.”

“The US establishment fully outwitted Trump; the President is not happy about the new sanctions, yet he could not but sign the bill. The issue of new sanctions came about, primarily, as another way to knock Trump down a peg,” wrote the Russian Prime Minister.

“New steps are to come, and they will ultimately aim to remove him from power. A non-systemic player has to be removed,” he added ominously.

Even more ominously, some reports indicate the Facebook post originally included Medvedev’s assessment of Trump as an “incompetent player” who would be “liquidated” by his domestic political enemies, although that verbiage does not appear in the current version of the post.

Medvedev accused signatories of the sanctions bill of ignoring American business interests for the sake of “anti-Russian hysteria,” a phrase that has also been popular with Russian President Vladimir Putin of late. The Russian Foreign Minister prefers “Russophobic hysteria,” which does not roll off the tongue quite as well, although they compensated for the clumsy language by throwing in some video of a hoedown at a Russian Renaissance fair.

Arguing that the sanctions regime will “remain in effect for decades unless a miracle happens,” Medvedev hinted Russia is preparing legal challenges for international courts, while also declaring sanctions “meaningless overall” because of Russian self-reliance.