Rabat – Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned on Friday that any attempt to arrest the country’s President Vladimir Putin abroad would be seen as “the unequivocal declaration of war against the Russian Federation.”
Medvedev’s threats came around a week after the Hague’s International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over war crimes in Ukraine, including the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia.
“The fools from the European power structure truly astound me,” said Medvedev, who currently serves as the Deputy Chair of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president between 2008 and 2012, made the statement days after German officials said that they intend to enforce the ICC arrest warrant for Putin if he travels to Germany.
“Let’s imagine that indeed, the functioning head of the largest nuclear state has come to Germany and is arrested. What is it? It is casus belli, the unequivocal declaration of war against the Russian Federation!” Medvedev stressed.
If Germany arrests the Russian President, “Russia would be forced to attack Berlin” Medvedev emphasized, warning that “destruction will rain on the Bundestag, the Chancellery, the Ministry of Defense and other key centres of decision-making.”
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Converging reports have indicated that Russia’s military “abducts” children from Ukraine and sends them to Russia for adoption. However, the Former Russian President has denied Putin’s alleged involvement in abducting thousands of Ukrainian children and unlawfully deporting them to Russia.
One investigation by the Associated Press (AP) suggested that Russia was making an “open effort to adopt Ukrainian children and bring them up as Russian.”
In response to the allegations, Russia argued that the children in question were left without parents or guardians to look after them.
Meanwhile, AP’s investigation uncovered that “officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories without consent, lied to them that they weren’t wanted by their parents, used them for propaganda, and given them Russian families and citizenship.”
