Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recalled the Russian past of the city of Kiev on Sunday in response to promises repeatedly voiced by top Ukrainian officials to “return” the Crimean Peninsula.
“Sometimes the enemy’s statements need to be answered not only diplomatically or somehow allegorically,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.
Various cockroaches that have been bred in the Kiev insectarium constantly threaten to ‘return Crimea.’ Well, their goals are clear: to cheer up the tame insects around and show the insectarium’s owner that they are still very capable of cockroach runs for a morsel of food.
The Ukrainian leadership is in no position to talk about the “return” of Crimea, the former president suggested, explaining that Kiev itself is, in fact, a Russian city.
Medvedev listed “indisputable facts” about the city, stating that Kiev was “the capital of Ancient Rus,” as well as “a large Little Russian city within the Russian Empire”, and “a capital of a republic of the USSR.”
In Kiev, “people always thought and spoke Russian. To make it clear about what and where should be returned,” Medvedev, who is now the deputy head of the country’s Security Council, concluded.
The remarks come as top Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pledged to restore Ukraine to its borders as of 1991, fully “de-occupying” its lands and seizing the Crimean Peninsula from Russia. The most recent statement on this matter was uttered by Kiev’s deputy defense minister, Vladimir Gavrilov, in an interview with Sky News on Saturday.
“I think Russia can face a black swan in their country… and this can contribute to [our] success with Crimea,” Gavrilov said. “We can step into Crimea, for example, by the end of December. Possible? Possible. Not ruling out that it can be so.”
Crimea broke away from Ukraine and voted to join Russia shortly after the 2014 coup in Kiev. This past October, four other formerly Ukrainian territories, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, were incorporated into Russia following referendums.