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On March 26, 2022, Russia Today published an interview with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, in which he discussed the Ukraine crisis, the United States, and Russia's future. Medvedev said that Europe does not have a monopoly on "Europeanness," that Russia is "polite" in that it does not point out that U.S. President Joe Biden is showing signs of dementia, that the U.S. is the real rogue state in today's world, that the U.S.-led "unipolar" world order is over, and that the U.S. had more "brains" during the Cuban Missile Crisis than it does today. Medvedev also spoke about anti-Russia policies in Poland and about Western sanctions against Russia.
Interviewer: "Today many Russians, including the country's top officials, if you listen to what they are saying feel that we are setting ourselves up against Europe as its opposite.
Dmitry Medvedev: "No. It is them who are setting themselves up against us. Trying to distinguish themselves from us. They don't have a monopoly on Europeanness. The Russophobic rhetoric we are seeing from the West now is nothing new. From time to time, we hear absolutely astonishing remarks, but we're polite and we never get personal. No one points out that there are some people who exhibit clear signs of dementia or old age senility.
"No one talks about grandpas that lose their balance as they are climbing the stairs to board a plane, or forget which way their office is and goes straight into the bushes
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"Poland has been trying to win back hundred of years rather than decades of its failed attempts to restore it to its former glory. If it can't do that, then it can at least remind the world of the fact that Poland used to be a very serious power, both in Europe and globally.
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"Today the country's elite is represented by the Law and Justice party and they have been on a pro-American and aggressively anti-Russian path for the past ten years.
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"They're trying to consolidate the voters that are very anti-Russian and it's no secret that Poland has quite a number of such people.
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"They're proposing some new schemes, even amending the Constitution in order to be able to confiscate Russia's property.
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"This is all sad and it's not going to end well, quite naturally they can expect a symmetrical reaction to their actions or countermeasures dictated by international law.
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"After the Soviet Union disappeared from the world map along with the Warsaw Pact, the US got absolutely out of control. They think they can do whatever they want. They think there is no longer any competition. But they're wrong, life does not stand still. Prompting new developments in international relations and new countries emerging as strong power houses.
"It means new senses of gravity in international relations are being shaped. Take the People's Republic of China, India, and the Russian Federation. The unipolar world is over, the US is no longer the master of planet Earth.
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"With these sanctions, the Western world is trying to influence the citizens of our country, to hurt them and of course try to incite them to turn against the course of the state's leadership, against the course of the president, in hope that in the end it will result in some kind of trouble, some problems for the authorities. It seems to me that the people who generate these decisions absolutely do not understand our mentality.
"They do not understand the incentives that when such pressure is applied. This pressure is not on large entrepreneurs, not on big business, this is pressure on anyone and everyone. Society is consolidated.
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"The lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis sank in pretty well back then. It had a sobering effect on everyone including the leadership of the US, NATO, the Soviet Union, and the Warsaw Pact. The world was living through a cold war then. But right now the situation is somewhat worse. In my view, back then our opponents did not try to bring the situation in the Soviet Union to its boiling point so aggressively.
"True, their actions may have been disguised but no sanctions were imposed on entire industries or agriculture, let alone personal sanctions. It never occurred to anybody to impose sanctions, they understood of course that it made no sense, just as they do now but at least they had their brains not to do it then.
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"The relationship between the Russian Federation and the West, US-led Anglo-Saxon civilization in the broad sense of the word is probably in a worse state than the 1960s and 70s. There is no doubt about that.
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"The US has banned our oil, although it hasn't gone that well. Americans will keep reminding President Biden about the price of a gallon. Ukraine is very far away and gasoline prices somewhere in the Middle East are at a record high right now. Inflation is ten percent, it is a mind blowing number for the US. So this decision will haunt the US administration.
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"After President Putin's decision to switch to ruble settlements, I think it's a pretty obvious move. They shut down the corresponding accounts for our commercial banks, made settlements in dollars and euros impossible, and disconnected the banks on the sanctions list from SWIFT, at least some of them.
"What did they think we were going to do? The only legal tender in the Russian Federation is the ruble, so it's a simple offer. Since there's no other way, you have to pay in rubles, so let them find a way to pay. In fact it is the US that is the rogue nation here, it's not because we don't like Americans, it's because the US is constantly launching wars of conquest across the world, they are the outcasts and the outlaws."
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