Russia is not Iran. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev directed this reminder to President Donald Trump on Monday in a social media post.
Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, issued what appears to be a not-so-veiled threat in response to Trump’s recent announcement that he has changed his mind about how long he’ll give Russia to strike a peace deal with Ukraine before leveling secondary sanctions against the Kremlin.
On Monday, Trump reduced the previous 50-day deadline to “10 or 12” days, prompting Medvedev’s response. “Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,” the Russian said in an X post, adding that he was referring to a war “Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!”
The reference to “Sleepy Joe road” was an attempt to remind Trump that it was he who publicly warned when the Joe Biden administration was in power that Biden’s interventionist Ukraine-Russia policy could result in World War III.
Also on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov compared the West to a childhood bully. He said during a forum that “when you’re a kid messing around with other boys in the yard, sometimes a big kid, three or four years older, shows up and starts chasing the little ones. That’s roughly what the West is doing to everyone else right now.” Some may take issue with that analogy and point out that it was bigger Russia that invaded smaller Ukraine.
Trump presented the 50-day ultimatum in mid-July, after he concluded that his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin were “meaningless.” He said during an Oval Office meeting with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte that the Kremlin had 50 days to make peace with its neighbor or face “secondary tariffs” of 100 percent. The NATO chief could barely contain his glee. He had multiple reasons to be excited. In addition to Trump finally getting tough with Putin, the American president also announced that the United States would sell weapons to NATO, which would in turn give them to Ukraine. Unlike Trump, who seemed genuinely interested in ending the war at one point, European leaders have been consistent in their overt desire to keep the war in Eastern Europe going.
The secondary tariffs, should they even be implemented, would be leveled against countries trading with Moscow. They would especially target Russia’s energy exports of crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum products, which account for up to 50 percent of the federal budget. China, India, and Turkey are the top recipients of Russian energy. But even Europe uses Russian energy, albeit less than it did before the Ukraine invasion. In Europe’s case, they’ve been playing a game of “hide where the Russian energy is going.” For example, Russia is France’s second-largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Only the United States ships more LNG to France. But from France, Russian LNG is shipped to European countries that don’t want the world to know their foolish green-energy policies have given them no choice but to buy the enemy’s goods, Germany being among the most prominent.
The Russians responded to Trump’s initial threat of secondary tariffs by saying they don’t do well with ultimatums and taking a jab at Trump’s consistent history of inconsistency and mixed messaging. Lavrov said, “We would like to understand what is behind this statement about 50 days. Earlier, there were also the deadlines of 24 hours and of 100 days, we’ve seen it all and really would like to understand the reasoning of the US president.”
Trump’s most recent shift has likely provided more fodder for Lavrov’s criticism of Trumpian wishy-washiness.
On Tuesday afternoon, Trump told reporters that he hadn’t heard anything from Russian officials regarding the sanctions deadline. He made a rare comments indicating doubt that his plan will work. “I don’t know if it’s going to affect Russia. We’ll put on tariffs and stuff…. It may or may not affect them. But it could,” Trump said, speaking aboard Air Force One.
On Monday, Lavrov issued statements indicating that Russia has no intention of falling back until it achieves what it set out to do. According to RT:
Lavrov stressed that Russia will not back down from its core security demands which led to the Ukraine conflict. “We insist on what is our legitimate demand…. No dragging Ukraine into NATO, no NATO expansion at all. It has already expanded right up to our borders, contrary to all promises and documents that were adopted,” he said, adding that a settlement of the conflict should also recognize the new territorial reality on the ground.
That “new territorial reality” will be a tough pill for the Ukrainians to swallow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t even come to accept that Ukraine is not getting Crimea back, much less the entire eastern border territories, which are now under Russian control.
Despite the lack of Western media attention to it, the NATO issue has been boiling over in Russia for decades. As we’ve reported repeatedly, several U.S. foreign policy experts, including George Kennan, issued warnings decades ago that NATO’s eastward expansion would eventually trigger a violent response from Russia. In 2022, that’s what happened.
For the United States, the correct posture would be complete noninvolvement. As we said in the February 14, 2022 print issue of The New American, “The meddling needs to stop. Americans should insist, therefore, that their elected representatives in Congress get the United States out of NATO and the United Nations and adopt a noninterventionist foreign policy.”
That report, titled “Russia vs. Ukraine: Is It Our Fight” makes the point that the longer this war drags on, the higher the chances of a nuclear world war erupting. And not only would that destroy lives, economies, and infrastructure, but it would create a world so devastated and desperate for stability that more people would be open to the idea of world government than ever.
It’s no coincidence that the 20th century saw attempts at world governments after each world war. After World War I, globalists created the League of Nations, which ultimately failed after the United State refused to join. But after World War II, globalists created the United Nations, of which the United States is a prominent member. The UN has grown a slew of tentacles that enable it to usurp sovereignty over individual nations. UN agencies include the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is designed to foster a universalist mindset; the World Health Organization (WHO), which showed its muscle during Covid when it dictated tyrannical health protocols to nearly all of Europe; the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is used to financially exploit and control member nations; and many other agencies that serve to strip autonomy from member states.
Trump would be wise to follow through on his previous threats to walk away from the conflict. Neither country poses a threat to the U.S. homeland, and both are corrupt and underserving of support.