Russia’s hawkish Dmitry Medvedev is now on Ukraine’s wanted list

Earlier, he blamed Ukraine for the Crimean Bridge explosion, urging ‘extermination’

The Russian shelling of Ukraine’s cities and civilian infrastructure on October 10 was the Kremlin’s response to the Crimean Bridge explosion that took place earlier, on October 8, damaging Russia’s critical link to the annexed peninsula. In the aftermath of the explosion, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, called it a “terrorist act” of the “criminal regime” in Kyiv. Following Medvedev’s aggressive statements, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) added his name to Ukraine’s official “Wanted” database.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) has placed Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s federal Security Council, on its wanted list. According to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry and its database, Medvedev’s arrest is sought by Ukraine on charges of “endangering the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine” (Article 110, part 2 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code).

On October 9, Medvedev gave an interview to Nadana Friedrichson, a pro-Kremlin journalist, who published his answers on her Telegram channel. In the interview, Medvedev called for the “direct extermination of the terrorists” responsible, according to Medvedev himself, for the Crimean Bridge explosion of October 8.

Medvedev attributed the explosion to SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, calling Ukraine itself a “failed state.”

It’s a terrorist act, an act of sabotage committed by the criminal Kiev regime. There is no doubt about this, nor has there ever been. All the reports and conclusions are in place. Russia can only respond to this crime by directly exterminating the terrorists.

This view, Medvedev added, was generally “accepted around the world,” and action was “expected by Russia’s citizens.”

Following Medvedev’s appearance on the SBU’s wanted list, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin opened a criminal case against the Security Service of Ukraine, for its supposedly “unlawful criminal prosecution” of Medvedev. The Investigative Committee stated:

It is obvious that the SBU made its decisions on fictitious grounds, and those decisions contradict the law. As part of the criminal case, the investigation will establish the concrete SBU officials who made these unlawful decision.

The SBU’s wanted list now also contains the name of Maria Zakharova, the Russian Interior Ministry’s press liaison.

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Reporting and translations by Anna Razumnaya