{"id":300627,"date":"2024-12-19T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=300627"},"modified":"2024-12-20T09:09:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T09:09:33","slug":"dmitry-medvedev-says-editors-of-the-times-are-legitimate-military-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=300627","title":{"rendered":"Dmitry Medvedev says editors of the Times are \u2018legitimate military targets\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pjotr Sauer \u2013 The Guardian Dec 18, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Russian security council deputy head, Dmitry Medvedev<\/a>, has described the editors of the Times newspaper in Britain as \u201clegitimate military targets\u201d in response to the newspaper\u2019s coverage of the assassination of a Russian general.<\/p>\n

Medvedev\u2019s vitriolic comments on Wednesday followed a Times editorial in which the newspaper described the assassination of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov as \u201ca legitimate act of defence\u201d by Ukraine, which has claimed responsibility for the killing.<\/p>\n

Kirillov, head of the military\u2019s chemical, biological and radiological weapons unit, was killed along with his assistant<\/a> when a device attached to an escooter exploded as the two men left a building in a residential area in south-east Moscow on Tuesday morning. Kirillov is the most senior Russian military official to be killed in an assassination away from the frontlines since the start of the Kremlin\u2019s offensive in Ukraine nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who carry out crimes against Russia \u2026 always have accomplices. They too are now legitimate military targets. This category could also include the miserable jackals from The Times<\/a> who cowardly hid behind their editorial. That means the entire leadership of the publication,\u201d Medvedev, who served as Russia\u2019s president between 2008 and 2012, wrote on his Telegram channel.<\/p>\n

In a thinly veiled threat, the hawkish former president added that journalists at the Times should \u201cbe careful\u201d as \u201canything goes in London\u201d.<\/p>\n

Responding to Medvedev\u2019s post, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, wrote on X that his \u201cgangster threat against Times journalists smacks of desperation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur newspapers represent the best of British values: freedom, democracy and independent thinking,\u201d Lammy wrote alongside a picture of himself reading the Times.<\/p>\n

Asked about Medvedev\u2019s comments, the UK prime minister\u2019s official spokesperson said they were \u201csimply the latest in a series of desperate rhetoric coming from Putin\u2019s government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added: \u201cUnlike in Russia<\/a>, a free press is a cornerstone of our democracy and we take any threats made by Russia incredibly seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medvedev, who cast himself as a liberal reformer promising modernisation and democratisation upon becoming president in 2008, has reinvented himself<\/a> as one of Russia\u2019s most vocal pro-war figures.<\/p>\n

He is now best known for his fiery anti-western tirades on Telegram, which some observers see as a desperate attempt to maintain political relevance.<\/p>\n

Still, Medvedev remains a prominent Putin confidant and recently travelled to Beijing for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, one of Russia\u2019s key allies.<\/p>\n

In the same post on Wednesday, Medvedev also threatened Nato officials assisting Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a whole legion of them. There\u2019s not even enough space to list them, but all these individuals can and should be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian state. And for all Russian patriots for that matter,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Since the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, Moscow has banned dozens of British journalists, media representatives and senior UK politicians from entering the country.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renowned for his over the top statements, the former Russia president\u2019s latest outburst follows the publication in the Times of an editorial that sought to justify the recent assassination of a high-ranking Russian general <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":294760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300628,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300627\/revisions\/300628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/294760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}