I suppose, as long as these two keep exchanging threats and snarky comments, they’ll be too preoccupied to do anything worse.

One can only hope.

Except that the taunts keep escalating. From Medvedev today:

“If some words from the former president of Russia trigger such a nervous reaction from the high-and-mighty president of the United States, then Russia is doing everything right.” [RFE/RL, August 1, 2025.]

And the goading reminder from Trump on Truth Social:

“I have just been informed that almost 20,000 Russian soldiers died this month in the ridiculous War with Ukraine.

“Russia has lost 112,500 soldier since the beginning of the year. That is a lot of unnecessary DEATH! Ukraine, however, has also suffered greatly. They have lost approximately 8,000 soldiers since January 1, 2025, and that number does not include their missing.” [Id.]

Yet the question remains: Is Dmitry Medvedev (derogatorily referred to in his own country as “Little Dima”) someone we need to be worried about? Or is Trump using him as the target for his invective in order to avoid a direct confrontation with Putin?

And who is Medvedev, anyway?

Yes, he was the titular president of Russia from 2008 to 2012 — but only as a stand-in for Vladimir Putin until Putin could run for his third term. At the time, the Russian Constitution provided for two permissible consecutive four-year presidential terms. So Putin served his two consecutive terms; took a required break for one term; installed his puppet Prime Minister, Medvedev, in the office in the interim; and made his comeback in 2012. (In the meantime, Putin had engineered a couple of changes in the Constitution to keep himself in office almost indefinitely.)

So, when Medvedev refers to himself as the former President of Russia, while he is not lying, he is glorifying his own past accomplishments. After his four years on the throne with Putin pulling the strings from behind, he returned to the position of Prime Minister in 2012. That lasted until 2020, when he was inexplicably removed from office and given the consolation role of Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation . . . a position not totally without influence, but with little or no actual decision-making authority.

There are varying opinions as to whether Medvedev actually has a great deal of influence on Putin, or whether he is just kept around to play the part of the warmonger while Putin pretends to be concerned with peace negotiations and other diplomatic niceties.

But what I don’t like is the idea of Donald Trump blithely throwing around the “N” word, even if it is only a tactical maneuver. As he himself said just yesterday:

“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.” [Jaroslav Lukiv, BBC News, August 1, 2025.]

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/1/25