Putin Ally Admits Ukraine Has Enough Weapons to Try to 'Destroy Us'

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, has said the West was supplying enough weapons to Kyiv to "destroy" his country.

In his latest post on his Telegram social-media channel, the former Russian president gave his take on the consequences of the meeting of Ukraine's allies at the U.S. Ramstein air base in Germany on January 20.

The group of more than 50 countries came to agreements on providing more arms, although there was an impasse over whether Germany would allow the delivery of its Leopard 2 tanks. Countries like Poland want to give Kyiv the vehicles, but this requires Berlin's permission. On Monday, Germany's foreign minister Anna Baerbock said she "would not stand in the way" of Warsaw, were it to send the advanced tanks to Kyiv.

Earlier, Medvedev had expressed his concern at the continued Western support for Ukraine, posting that its allocation of weapons "leaves no doubt that our enemies will indefinitely try to wear us down, or rather destroy us.

"And they have enough weapons," Medvedev wrote, "if necessary, they will start producing new ones."

He concluded from this "very difficult" situation for Russia that, if there were a "protracted conflict in Ukraine, at some point a new military alliance will form."

This would be made up of the countries that "the Americans and their pack of castrated dogs" had reached.

The Warsaw Pact of Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union was a military alliance formed in response to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, but was dissolved in 1991.

Medvedev said that the U.S. "will finally throw the old woman Europe and the remnants of the unfortunate Ukrainians, and the world will again come to a state of equilibrium."

In a statement to Newsweek, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said that Washington "will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, so Ukraine can continue to defend itself and be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table when the time comes."

Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and, as an ally of Putin, has gained headlines for his rhetoric on his Telegram social-media channel since the war started in Ukraine, during which he has issued wild threats to the West. On January 19, Medvedev wrote that a nuclear power such as Russia losing in a conventional war "can provoke the outbreak of a nuclear war.

"Nuclear powers do not lose major conflicts on which their fate depends," he added.

Medvedev also used rich imagery in a post suggesting that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should perform "seppuku," a form of ritual suicide. This followed the Japanese premier's joint statement with U.S. President Joe Biden on January 13 against the prospect of nuclear weapons being used in the Ukraine war.

Update 01/24/23, 11.45 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the U.S. State Department.