You only have to hear the words of Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian President and Vladimir Putin’s long term chief sidekick, to realise just how far Russia has propelled itself from the circle of civilised nations.
Putin’s Russia not only uses state assassinations as an instrument of policy, but jokes and boasts about it too
Dmitry Medvedev has recently made a habit of outdoing even his boss in blood curdling rhetoric. His latest outburst is typical: a direct threat to the lives of British officials. Britain, he declared, is waging an ‘undeclared war’ on Russia through its support for Ukraine, and because of that all British officials have now become ‘legitimate targets’.
Dmitry Medvedev’s chilling words may be no idle threat. Russia has a long history of assassinating – or attempting to assassinate – both its own dissidents living abroad in exile or foreign residents who have dared to displease the men in the Kremlin.
In fact, just as the former president issued his threat, the pro-Putin TV propagandist Olga Skabeyeva, nicknamed the ‘Iron Doll’ for her support for the war, made a direct reference to one such assassination attempt – Moscow’s botched bid to murder former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury in March 2018.
Olga, who is married to pro-Putin politician and fellow TV host Yevgeny Popov, said that she wanted to see the spire of Salisbury cathedral fall on the head of Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and impale him.
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