Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev acknowledged President Obama’s imminent departure from the White House with a mocking statement blaming the outgoing administration for the current state of U.S.-Russia relations.
Medvedev’s laid the blame for a host of international crises at Obama’s feet, including the ongoing violence in Ukraine. Russia has annexed Crimea, a critical region of Ukraine, and is supporting proxies in eastern Ukraine. But Medvedev argued that the Ukrainian crisis stems from the United States “brazenly interfering in the internal affairs of various countries” and derided the sanctions that Obama imposed in response to the action.
“Ill-considered economic sanctions, which did no one any good, have reduced our cooperation to zero,” Medvedev wrote in a Facebook post published Thursday. “There were the ridiculous individual sanctions that nobody paid attention to. And it doesn’t get any dumber than restricting entry to the United States for the leadership of the Russian parliament, ministers, and businessmen, thus deliberately reducing the possibility of full-fledged contacts and closing the window to cooperation. The bet was on brute force and sheer pressure.”
That’s a sharp decline in rhetoric from 2012, when Medvedev was president of Russia and had a more convivial relationship with Obama. “This is my last election,” as Obama was overheard saying to Medvedev. “After my election I have more flexibility.”
The Ukraine crisis began in 2014, when then-President Viktor Yanukovych pulled out of a treaty that would strengthen economic and political ties with the European Union. That decision sparked “a huge — and violent — campaign to push him from power,” as the BBC reported at the time. Russian President Vladimir Putin ultimately gave Yanukovych safe haven in Russia and sent out-of-uniform military forces into Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
“The United States and its allies have crossed all possible lines in their drive to bring Kiev into their orbit,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in 2015. “That could not have failed to trigger our reaction.”
Obama imposed a variety of sanctions on Russia in response, including measures targeting the Russian energy sector that interdicted a major oil-and-gas development deal negotiated between Putin and then-ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Those sanctions remain a major blow to the Russian economy — and a cause for speculation now that Tillerson is Trump’s nominee to lead the State Department.
Tillerson opposed the sanctions when they were imposed, but he also denounced Russian aggression toward Ukraine and even faulted Obama for failing to act more strenuously following the initial annexation of Crimea. That took place before Putin sent forces into eastern Ukraine.
“If Russia acts with force — the taking of Crimea was an act of force, they didn’t just volunteer themselves — so it required a proportional show of force to indicate to Russia that there will be no more taking of territory,” Tillerson said during his Senate confirmation hearing.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared his confidence that Trump would not lift the sanctions unless Russia withdraws their forces from Ukrainian territory. “President Trump has confirmed that he is sticking on the obligations of the United States,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
Medvedev wants Trump to lift those sanctions. “We do not know yet how the new US administration will approach relations with our country,” he wrote. “But we are hoping that reason will prevail. And we are ready to do our share of the work in order to improve the relationship.”
