Updated 00:18 | Published 00:08
Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev is now threatening targeted attacks against the West.
He points out two countries.
– Those would be legitimate goals.
Medvedev’s angry outburst comes after an interview with British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps.
The minister tells the Sunday Telegraph that it may be relevant to send British military personnel to Ukraine to train their soldiers there.
Britain has already trained around 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers at bases in the West.
Destroyed without mercy
Medvedev, formerly both Russian president and prime minister and now vice-chairman of the National Security Council, writes in response in a post on Telegram that such a British move would make them “a legitimate target”, writes Newsweek.
“These soldiers would be destroyed without mercy,” he says.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, however, was quick to temper his minister’s words.
– What the Minister of Defense said was that it might be possible to do that type of training in Ukraine at some point in the future. No British soldiers will be sent to war in the current conflict, Sunak said.
Bomb factories
The Putin summit also singles out Germany in its post. And there he threatens with targeted attacks against targets inside the country.
The background is that pressure has increased on the German government to send the Taurus cruise robot to Ukraine.
If Chancellor Olaf Scholz decides to send the weapon, it would be “bomb attacks against German factories where the robot is manufactured in accordance with international law”, writes Dmitry Medvedev.
The Taurus is similar to the Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise robot already sent to Ukraine by France and Britain, but it has a longer range and is considered a better weapon for knocking out bridges, experts say according to Newsweek.
Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the Crimean Bridge, which connects the occupied peninsula of Crimea with the Russian mainland.
Can knock out targets 50 miles away
If Ukraine were to succeed in blowing up the bridge, it would be a huge setback for Russia’s ability to funnel materiel and supplies to the front.
Taurus has a jet engine, GPS and sensors that help it reach its target up to 50 miles away.
For Ukraine, the cruise robot is high on the wish list, but the German government has hesitated.
The Wall Street Journal recently wrote that “German personnel would need to be on the ground in Ukraine to manage the maintenance and handling of the complex weapon”, which is partly behind Germany’s hesitation.
The chancellor is said to be worried that deliveries of the Taurus would drag Germany further into the war and lead to an escalation of the conflict with Moscow, as Medvedev’s threats on Sunday seem to prove.