Russia Medvedev questions the raison d'être of a united Germany
Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev has accused Germany of militarism and a desire for revenge for its defeat in the Second World War and questioned the Federal Republic of Germany's right to exist.
07.05.2026, 16:42
SDA
There had never been a referendum on reunification and it was therefore legally questionable, he explained in a long essay on the propaganda channel RT. The article was published two days before the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 is commemorated in Russia on Saturday.
Medvedev also wrote that Berlin had violated the Two Plus Four Treaty by opening a naval tactical headquarters in Rostock. The politician, who is still influential as Deputy Head of the Security Council, claimed that the treaty regulating German unity was therefore invalid.
After the opening of the CTF Baltic naval base in 2024, Moscow had already complained that Germany was undermining the ban on the expansion of NATO military infrastructure to the east. Berlin had countered with the argument that it was a national military facility under German command, in which personnel from other nations also worked. Medvedev nevertheless spoke of a violation of the Two Plus Four Treaty. "This in turn calls into question the legality of the modern German state," he wrote.
Once again, Medvedev directly attacked German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a text peppered with Nazi comparisons. He accused the latter's government of driving the German economy into the abyss. Merz obviously does not realize that the rearmament will not bring growth, he wrote - against the backdrop of an unprecedented rearmament in Russia, where 40 percent of budget revenues flow into the defence and security apparatus.
Medvedev sees Germany on nuclear weapons course and threatens
He also accused Berlin of striving for nuclear weapons. In this context, he threatened war. He made it clear that even the danger of Germany acquiring nuclear weapons already constituted a reason for war for the Kremlin. But even a conventional war without nuclear weapons would end in complete destruction for Germany, he wrote.
Medvedev, who sat in the Kremlin from 2008 to 2012, was seen as a beacon of hope for Russia's liberalization during his time in office. Since the start of the war against Ukraine ordered by Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in 2022, he has made a name for himself as a hardliner. He has repeatedly attracted attention with threats of nuclear strikes against Western capitals such as Berlin, London and Paris.
