Medvedev, "Peace Through Fear"
Toyin Falola
Pay attention to this doctrine of “peace through fear.”
29 Apr, 2025 16:58
Russia’s victory, EU’s decline, and a just world order: Highlights from Medvedev’s speech
The former president has given an address outlining Moscow’s current foreign policy priorities
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev © Ekaterina Shtukina; RIA Novosti
Moscow’s victory in the Ukraine conflict will lay the groundwork for a more just world based on mutual respect and stable development, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said, adding that this vision is supported by most of the world’s population.
The senior official, currently serving as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, outlined Moscow’s foreign policy priorities and recalled the history of the West’s confrontational approach to Russia during a public lecture in Moscow on Tuesday.
Here are the key points of Medvedev’s speech.
Ukraine Conflict
Medvedev stated that the Ukraine conflict stems from decades of Western hostility toward Russia and the fostering of neo-Nazism
in Ukraine by the “Anglo-Saxon crowd.” He argued that Russia’s military response was necessary to address these provocations, stating that even US President Donald Trump acknowledged that Washington,
Brussels, and Kiev are responsible for the Ukraine crisis which has nearly triggered World War III.
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MORE: ‘Real de-Nazification’ would include all Europe – Medvedev
The former president also stressed that Russia’s ultimate goal is to destroy the “Kiev
neo-Nazi regime,” not the Ukrainian state itself. He emphasized that Russia would not allow hostile regimes to re-emerge on its borders and called for a complete denazification of Ukraine, as well as Europe.
He also warned that all foreign fighters and any future foreign contingents in Ukraine are legitimate military targets under international law, and promised that war criminals
would face justice.
Commenting on Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, Medvedev described him as a “pathological figure” and suggested he
would “end very badly.”
He predicted that after the conflict ends, Russia would establish a new national holiday to commemorate its victory in Ukraine which, according to Medvedev, is essential to
ensure lasting security.
Russia and the West
Medvedev has described Russia’s relationship with the West as a long history of confrontation, rooted in persistent efforts
by ”Anglo-Saxon powers” to weaken Russia. He recalled that even during World War II, Britain and the US considered plans to attack the Soviet Union, referencing ”Operation
Unthinkable,” which was secretly developed under Winston Churchill’s orders in 1945. Medvedev argued that after the war, the West squandered the chance to build a fair international order, instead creating a system based on double standards, cynicism, and
attempts to isolate Russia.
READ
MORE: Western Europe waging ‘quiet war’ against Trump – Medvedev
Medvedev stated that while Russia had always sought peaceful coexistence, it now faces a situation where it must counter
the West’s ”peace through strength” strategy with its own doctrine of ”peace through fear,” asserting that only the threat of strong retaliation,
including nuclear deterrence, can keep the West from taking hostile actions.
At the same time, he rejected claims that Russia might attack Europe, calling them ”nonsense” designed
to frighten European populations and justify rampant militarization.
The former president also concluded that Russian-EU relations have passed the ”point of no return,” arguing that there are no independent, strong leaders left on the continent, only ”spineless Russophobic figures” and ”cowardly marionettes.” Medvedev expressed little hope for meaningful dialogue with current EU governments, and suggested that future interaction would be limited or nonexistent. At the same time, he claimed that many ordinary Europeans are growing disillusioned with their leaders’ policies toward Russia.
EU’s decline
Medvedev described today’s Western Europe as suffering from “feeblemindedness
without courage.” He argued that the continent has abandoned its traditions and fallen under the control of radical, Russophobic leaders.
READ
MORE: Medvedev brands incoming German chancellor a ‘Nazi’
He claimed that Western Europe is increasingly embracing extremist ideologies and must also undergo a process of denazification
alongside Ukraine. Medvedev pointed to the decision by European authorities to invite Ukrainian nationalists – whom he linked to WWII-era Ukrainian far-right leader Stepan Bandera – to the 80th anniversary celebrations of the end of World War II, while deliberately
excluding representatives from Russia, calling it an act of profound cynicism.
Medvedev went on to state that the EU is not only politically weak but also morally degraded, lacking any real leadership or strategic independence, and on the verge of collapse. He predicted that the bloc would continue to oppose Donald Trump and traditionalist forces in the US, reflecting a deep ideological split between globalist elites in Europe and rising conservative movements elsewhere in the West.
Just world order
The former president suggested that Russia is fighting with “truth and
justice” on its side, positioning itself as the defender of genuine international law against Western hypocrisy.
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MORE: Forum highlights Russia’s role in shaping multipolar global order
He argued that Russia’s victory in the Ukraine conflict would mark the first step toward the creation of a fair, multipolar
world order.
Medvedev claimed that the Western “rules-based order” is
illegitimate and called for its replacement with a true international system grounded in mutual respect and real international law. He noted that most of humanity, particularly the Global South, already supports this vision, while acknowledging that creating
such a multipolar world would likely take many years.
Medvedev also stated that despite their geopolitical rivalry, Russia and the US do not have to be permanent enemies and argued that pragmatic cooperation between the two countries is crucial for global stability, especially given their roles as the largest nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council. He expressed cautious hope that dialogue with Washington could resume on a more pragmatic basis, while dismissing the EU as an increasingly irrelevant actor.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Here is Medvedev’s entire speech “Our Dangerous World: Who Is to Blame and What Is to Be Done?” delivered on 29 April 2025 at the federal educational marathon «Знание.Первые» “Knowledge. First”.
True patriotism and loyalty to one’s duty: that is the point from which I begin. I will speak about these things now, so I ask you to gather a little patience; in my view they are important words. The scale and complexity of the historical mission assumed by our country cannot be overestimated. 80 years ago, at the cost of enormous effort and enormous loss, our people smashed Hitler’s fascism. Today we are once again compelled to fight its disgusting successor — the Kyiv regime that was nurtured and armed by Western sponsors, by the patrons of that regime.
Whenever I remember my own relatives, participants in the Great Patriotic War, whenever I look at the faces of ordinary people who passed through the furnace of that war, whenever I look at the photographs of that victorious May of 1945, I think — tell those happy men and women that things would turn out as they have turned out, and they simply would not have believed it. A bitter historical absurdity lies in the fact that now a hybrid war against us is being waged by the hands of that narco-Führer and his pitiful Reich, and it is being waged by our former allies — those very allies whose hands our fathers, grandfathers and, for many of you, great-grandfathers once clasped on the Elbe, those with whom we together liberated European cities, those with whom people together, speechless with horror, stood over the ashes of Auschwitz or of Mauthausen, and those with whom we dreamed of building a new and just world.
One has to admit that the times have not changed for the better. The world — our world — has again become very dangerous. In its thousand-year history Russia has passed through the heaviest trials and has borne them with honor. And the farther we go, the stronger becomes the general desire to ensure for our country and for its millions a future, a secure future, a prosperous future. In order to do this it is necessary to draw lessons from errors that have been committed and, I especially emphasize, from illusions that have been lost; it is necessary to find true allies and not to fall for the hypocritical snares of wolves dressed in sheepskin; or, as Scripture says, it is necessary to separate the sheep from the goats; it is necessary to understand the first causes of many troubles and to do everything so that nothing like this can ever be repeated.
Today I would like to reflect together with you on the answers to the two questions that our country has been asking ever since the time of Herzen and Chernyshevskiy. I am sure everyone present in this hall remembers the works in which those questions appear. But it is important to sort things out in what seem to be perfectly rhetorical questions in a situation where our world has become so dangerous and where we think about the future of those who are close to us, about the future of children, and try at least somehow to plan that future.
So, the first question is “Who is to blame?”
Let us call everything by its own name. The culprit of an unprecedented crisis that has brought humankind right up to the last edge of danger, or perhaps already over that edge beyond which lies non-existence, is, let us say, the Anglo-Saxon clique and its selfish games. The foundation of that clique was always cunning and greed, accompanied unfailingly by a benevolent poker face. Unfortunately we, too — I underline this — we too for a long time showed short-sightedness. During the years of the Second World War, and after it, during a short warming of relations, and again in the first post-Soviet years, we trusted people to whom one should not have trusted anything, people who were not worthy of trust. I will name them directly, those to whom one should not have trusted — the United States of America, Western Europe, including the largest states: Britain, France, Germany, Italy and a series of other countries. We allowed ourselves to be taken in by the sly tricks of our historical opponents; we sincerely failed to understand that their words sometimes are not worth a farthing and that their signatures under documents are sheer fiction.
On the other hand we must admit that our relations with the West have never been cloudless and never fully sincere. The Anglo-Saxon world never wished our country prosperity in any historical era, and since the middle of the nineteenth century it has done everything possible to weaken and neutralize a strong competitor on the world stage.
Now I will make a small excursion into history — understandably, on the eve of the holiday and because the topic itself invites that reflection.
In the 1920s and 30s, as is well known, our official allies in the Second World War, just in case, fed and incited the leaders of Hitler’s Reich. When the fascists attacked us, at first they simply waited, they watched — from across the English Channel or from beyond the ocean — to see how it would end, and they placed cynical bets on the likely winner. What Senator Harry Truman — later Vice-President and then President of the United States — said in the New York Times on 24 June 1941, two days after the war began, expressed the position with maximum clarity. He stated that under no circumstances is the victory of Hitler desirable. At the same time, and here I quote him exactly: “If America sees that Germany is winning, we should help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we should help Germany, and thus allow two countries to kill each other as much as possible.” Those are the perfectly cynical words of a future American president.
Only when a decisive turning-point in the war came and the conversation turned to the post-war division of the whole world, into spheres of influence, did the Anglo-Saxons bestir themselves and actively join the business. They dosed their assistance and never forgot to extract their own profit out of it. The hand that gives has never been disinterested; it always stirred the future political stew. A few more strokes should be added to the portrait of our historical opponents, those very Anglo-Saxons. During the war the allies shared reconnaissance information with our command very stingily. Paradoxically, those data had to be collected mainly by Soviet agents in the United States and Britain, while their own special services carefully hid the intelligence. Facts of that kind have now been declassified. However, when the outcome of the war in Europe was already predetermined, the allies tried, on a purely propagandistic level, to appropriate victory for themselves. One need only recall the petty fuss around the capitulation of Hitler’s Germany.
There is a detail to which earlier people rarely paid attention — perhaps out of delicacy, perhaps for other reasons — but there is testimony. In May 1945, after Hitler’s suicide, the Nazis, already in agony, resisted desperately only on the Eastern Front against Soviet troops, and at the same time surrendered en masse without a fight on the Western Front to the British and Americans; they bargained over acceptable conditions for ending hostilities and often proposed announcing a cease-fire without signing a general or final capitulation. Historical parallels with what is happening today suggest themselves. Their principal aim was to gain time and withdraw as many German units and as many refugees as possible westward, away from the Bolshevik hordes with which Goebbels’ propaganda had frightened them. The allies knowingly went along with them. That produced the fuss over surrenders in Northern Italy, in Northwest Germany, in Bavaria, in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands. After big negotiations at the headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Reims on 7 May, a deed of unconditional surrender of Germany’s armed forces was signed hastily and in an everyday setting, purely so that the allies could show themselves as the first at the finishing tape. The Soviet command expressed its dissatisfaction unambiguously with the status of the signatories of that document, for they lacked authority to dispose of military operations on all fronts, including both the Western and the Eastern. As a result, that Reims procedure was agreed to be regarded only as a preliminary capitulation, after which there followed a complete, final capitulation with participation of the Soviet command.
Afterward, and right up to the present, Anglo-Saxon propaganda has taught ordinary citizens that the victors over Hitler’s fascism were exclusively America and Britain. According to opinion polls many Americans still sincerely believe it. Even today, as you know, Berlin has invited, for participation in celebrations, Banderite Nazis who have bred like lice, and it has not invited representatives of Russia. That, of course, is cynicism of an absolute and unbounded sort, and it must never be forgotten.
In May the Americans celebrate only a Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation, while with far greater pomp they celebrate 2 September — the day of Japan’s capitulation in the Second World War. The senseless nuclear bombardments of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became, for Americans, a sign of true retribution, yet one must ask, retribution upon whom? Upon the population of Japan for generations to come. And of course the bomber strike from high altitude carried no risk whatsoever for America, and no one doubted the outcome of the battle. The Japanese military leadership itself hardly suffered; blood and radioactive ash were used to frighten the world and to demonstrate nuclear might.
Yet the main victories of the war were forged not there. Let us ask where those allies were when fighters of the Red Army stood to the death outside Moscow, perished in the Rzhev cauldron, fought at Kursk and Stalingrad, and liberated cities occupied by the fascists — including European cities. What were those allies negotiating, what questions were they posing? Such reflections are rhetorical, but the agitation of Western propagandists around historical facts, and their attempts to call black white, are well known.
Something else seldom mentioned: London and Washington planned, immediately after the victory, to strike the Red Army. The plan came to light much later. 80 years ago, while battles still raged, Prime Minister Churchill secretly ordered preparations for Operation Unthinkable. Its aim was to drive Soviet forces out of Eastern Germany and Poland. They even set a possible date for invasion — 1 July 1945. That means only one thing: already then London was preparing a third world war against us. Britain’s Committee of Chiefs of Staff, being professional soldiers, declared the operation impossible because of Soviet superiority in men and weapons; only that saved the world from a fatal cataclysm. The conclusion is clear: our opponents are restrained solely by military power, and that remains entirely true today.
After the war ended Western double-dealing continued. The Nuremberg process, though great in principle, judged only a small share of the chief Nazi criminals. Many who had built the economic base of the Nazi regime and were linked with business circles in London and Washington escaped punishment. Western tribunals in the American zone conducted 12 trials; 24 death sentences were passed, 11 pardoned, 13 carried out; 20 life sentences were imposed, plus about a hundred other prison terms. By contrast, from May 1945 to January 1947 Soviet military tribunals, operating under a special law, tried roughly 14,000 real war criminals: 138 death sentences and almost 14,000 other verdicts; 142 people were acquitted. Western de-Nazification therefore dwindled to almost nothing: a few openly Nazi organizations were dissolved, Nazi symbols were removed, the rest turned into a formality — mere questionnaires and nothing more.
Many Nazi executioners lived out their lives in comfort. The former Gauleiter of Hamburg, Karl Kaufmann, resided peacefully in that same city and became a partner in an insurance company. Otto Hofmann, who had run the SS Main Office for Race and Settlement, returned to commerce and died in his eighties, having outlived many victorious Soviet commanders. So the West treated those who had unleashed war and were guilty of monstrous crimes against humanity. The Federal Republic never squared its historical accounts and never truly rid itself of Nazism’s bequest.
German historians now twist themselves into knots trying to justify such “humanitarianism” toward the murderers. The only thing those would-be humanists sacrificed was membership in the Nazi Party, yet their prosperity and comfort only grew, and they preserved their loyalty to Nazi ideas. Is it any wonder that today aggressive Russophobes and militarists occupy Germany’s political stage?
One must therefore recognize that responsibility lies with Western representatives for the fact that the ideals of a just, balanced and safe post-war order remained mere hopes. At the prompting of the Anglo-Saxons they were turned into their opposite. Only a short time after the glorious year 1945 the world was already talking about a Cold War and an Iron Curtain. The military-political confrontation of blocs caused crisis after crisis, and it is not hard to guess who provoked them.
Let me remind you that the Warsaw Pact Organisation was formed in 1955, and in the thirty-five years of its existence it admitted not a single new member, whereas NATO kept expanding and continues to do so right now. The North Atlantic alliance has gone through several waves of absorbing European states. There is not one country whose security genuinely grew as a result of joining NATO. Poland, the Baltic states, and quite recently Finland and Sweden enjoyed definite advantages from non-alignment; now, having entered a hostile bloc, they automatically become targets for our armed forces, including potential retaliatory or even preventive nuclear strikes. What kind of safety did they obtain? None. They merely entered our targeting lists.
There was a chance, after 1945, to continue the unique cooperation of the united nations in the anti-Hitler coalition. Instead we were drawn into endless confrontation. Our post-war policy aimed to avert a third world war. Patriarch of diplomacy Andrei Gromyko said: better ten years of negotiations than one day of war. Strict adherence to that principle gave the world life and became a part of our national self-awareness. From time to time our country put forward workable initiatives for common security. The Paris Charter for a New Europe, the CFE Treaty, the CSCE — each existed because of the Soviet Union, but on the other side of the table another wind was blowing: blackmail, containment, interference in internal affairs, the notorious “peace through force.” All of it was invented as the main tool for dealing with Russia.
The ideologists of the present-day West, drowning in russophobia, have memorized their predecessors’ manuals. To re-educate such people in the near future is unrealistic; the only thing that stops them is fear of punishment. That is the harsh but unavoidable truth. The rest is zero, because their vocabulary does not include mutual respect, trust, equal cooperation, universal values — everything we tried for so long to build on the Eurasian continent.
Continuing, one must add that Western diplomacy has always tried to exploit any opening for pressure. During the brief détente of the 1970s our country, in good faith, agreed to include a “human-rights basket” in the Helsinki Act. The West immediately turned that clause into a club, lecturing us in a didactic tone about democracy while covertly financing nationalist underground movements — above all the Ukrainian nationalists who are now marching behind Banderite banners. The same pattern marked economics. The West never dreamed of integrating us as an equal partner; it saw Russia only as a cheap raw-materials source. As early as 1949 the United States set up the Coordinating Committee for Export Controls, whose explicit purpose was to hold the socialist camp in technological lag by delaying any sale of modern machinery for at least four years after it entered serial production in the West. From the first oil pipeline in 1962 through the entry of our troops into Afghanistan in 1979 and Poland’s emergency rule in 1981, sanctions followed one after another. In fact, the history of sanctions against Russia begins in September 1917 and has never really stopped; what we face today is merely their apogee — 30,000 separate restrictions, or even more, depending how one counts.
When the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia slid into a vast economic crisis, the West tried with all its strength to finish us and break the country apart. That, too, failed. Yet relations have passed a point of no return: in today’s Old World there is no one with whom we can speak seriously, and nothing serious to discuss. European leaders have shrunk; instead of strong personalities stand technical figures of frankly Russophobic bent. America, by contrast, still produces leaders of vivid if sometimes paradoxical character. One may say what one likes about Donald Trump, but his team contains both professionals and charismatic personalities, which offers at least a faint hope that real negotiations might be possible. The Europeans, by comparison, are spineless marionettes, ready to abandon any principle the instant they smell danger. They move along a familiar path: from diplomatic deceit, as with the Minsk accords, to the shameful circus that is now swirling around the Paris Olympics; from imposing their strange catalogue of “values” on us to supporting Banderite extremists and rewriting history; from stealing Russian assets and blocking our media to prosecuting their own citizens for sympathy toward Russia or to removing strong rivals from election ballots at home. Their grimaces and contortions might even be amusing were they not bringing misery to countless people and courting harsh retribution.
Recently, to everyone’s amazement, the sitting president of the United States declared that the responsibility for Ukraine’s disaster lies not with Russia but with his predecessor. He spoke according to the conventions of political theatre, of course, yet by those words he nevertheless admitted that the United States, Europe and their murderous Kyiv proxies created the crisis. Many in Europe had their ears ringing at that moment, yet instinct told them to stay silent. We should not underestimate what they are still capable of. For that reason the central question now becomes what must be done.
First, the special military operation must be completed by Russia’s victory and the destruction of the Kyiv neo-Nazi regime. I stress: the regime must be destroyed, not necessarily the state. Whether a Ukrainian state will continue is a matter for the future, but a political structure founded on Banderite ideology cannot be allowed to live. The price has proved far too high. Genuine de-Nazification is required not only in Ukraine but across Europe, and it must be carried out decisively by the joint efforts of many countries; whoever refuses to participate must be marked plainly as an accomplice of Nazism.
Second, while the operation lasts, anyone who takes up arms against us is a legitimate target, whether he wears a regular uniform or is a foreign mercenary. Anyone proposing to bring outside “peacekeepers” onto Ukrainian soil should remember such troops would instantly become combatants and would face all the consequences. Prisoners who lay down arms receive humane treatment, yet no act of surrender erases responsibility for crimes committed against civilians.
Third, after victory we shall need a new international tribunal — call it Nuremberg Two. It must pass judgment on all those who planned, financed and justified the crimes of Kyiv. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has utterly compromised itself; it is incapable of delivering justice. If the wider community refuses to create a proper court, our own courts will do so, exactly as Soviet tribunals tried Nazi war criminals in many Soviet cities from 1943 to 1949.
Fourth, organizations that have shown blatant hostility to Russia must be swept out of the country. At the same time life compels us to draft new basic agreements in economics, finance, security and humanitarian cooperation — agreements that serve all states, not a self-appointed elite.
Fifth, whatever political entity remains on the map in place of present-day Ukraine must never under any circumstances join NATO or any comparable bloc directed against Russia, not now, not in decades to come. Bilateral pacts that mimic Article Five of the Washington Treaty are equally unacceptable; a threat is a threat, no matter what article of what treaty enshrines it.
Sixth, we must conduct real conversation only with powers that make real decisions. Europe is led today by people who have neither backbone nor independence; to discuss existential matters with them is pointless. The dialogue that matters is with the United States, because two nuclear giants are condemned by history to cooperate: otherwise the world will drift toward catastrophe. The European Union, meanwhile, is visibly degrading, and we shall observe that process without regret.
Seventh, a multipolar order must be built together with the world’s majority — the nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the so-called global South. They understand the need for an order based on mutual respect and on the certainty that aggression is punished. Russia’s victory in the present operation is simply the first step toward a durable peace in Europe and the construction of that wider, fairer world.
This labor is painstaking and will take years, perhaps decades; yet without it we cannot survive. I call on all of you, especially young people, to direct your energy toward it. Marshal Rokossovsky said: only a people that honors its heroes can be great. We honor ours, and therefore victory will be ours.
Thank you to ChatGPT for the translation of the transcript.