UK officials ‘legitimate military targets’: Dmitri Medvedev

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Vladimir Putin’s security council says UK military support for Ukraine constitutes ‘an undeclared war against Russia’.

A specialist inspects the damaged facade of a multi-storey apartment building after a reported drone attack in Moscow this week. Picture: AFP.

British officials are a “legitimate military target” for Russian attacks, a former Russian president has said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of President Putin’s security council, said British military support for Ukraine constituted “an undeclared war against Russia”. He said the UK was an “eternal enemy” of Moscow.

Medvedev was responding to comments made by James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, who had defended Ukraine’s right to strike military targets in Russia after Moscow was subjected to a barrage of kamikaze drone attacks on Tuesday morning. Ukrainian officials denied that they were responsible, but on Monday the country’s military had warned it would retaliate against Russia for its bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

The drones appeared to target some of Moscow’s wealthiest suburbs with some shot down only a few kilometres from Putin’s residence of Novo-Ogaryovo, an opulent estate where the Russian president is believed to spend most of his time. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, claimed the attacks were an assassination attempt.

A "No Drone Zone" sign in central Moscow. Picture: AFP.

But speaking on a visit to Estonia on Tuesday, Cleverly said Ukraine “has the right to project force beyond its borders” – although he insisted that British weapons given to Kyiv including Storm Shadow cruise missiles were reserved for use within Ukraine.

“Legitimate military targets beyond its own border are part of Ukraine’s self-defence and we should recognise that,” he said. “What we have done is supported Ukraine to defend itself within its own borders and we will happily continue to do so.”

In a message posted on Twitter yesterday, Medvedev threatened retaliation against British officials.

“The goofy officials of the UK, our eternal enemy, should remember that within the framework of the universally accepted international law which regulates modern warfare, including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols, their state can also be qualified as being at war,” he said.

“Today, the UK acts as Ukraine’s ally providing it with military aid in the form of equipment and specialists, ie de facto is leading an undeclared war against Russia. That being the case, any of its public officials (either military, or civil, who facilitate the war) can be considered as a legitimate military target.”

Medvedev is not the first senior Russian to threaten the UK for supporting Ukraine. Putin vowed a “response” if the UK supplied Ukraine with armour-piercing tank shells made with depleted uranium. “If all this happens, Russian will have to respond accordingly, given that the West collectively is already beginning to use weapons with a nuclear component,” he said.

Last year, an anchor on Russian state television threatened to submerge the UK in a “radioactive tsunami”. Dmitry Kiselyov urged Putin to fire a Poseidon nuclear torpedo into the sea, creating a 500m wave that would turn the UK into a “radioactive desert, unusable for anything”.

The Times