Remind NATO Not to Supply Patriots to Ukraine, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council: Become a Target of Our Armed Forces

Dmitry Medvedev. (Wikimedia Commons/Yelakutmen

JAKARTA - Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Tuesday against providing Ukraine with a Patriot missile defense system, denouncing the alliance as a criminal entity for sending weapons to what he called an extremist regime.

Medvedev, who once described himself as a modernizing liberal, was President of Russia from 2008 to 2012. He posts scathing denunciations of the West on his social media channels.

"If, as (NATO Secretary General Jens) Stoltenberg has hinted, NATO will supply Patriot systems to Ukrainian zealots along with NATO personnel, they will soon become legitimate targets of our armed forces," Medvedev wrote on the messaging app Telegram, citing Reuters, November 30.

However, the Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council did not clearly refer to whether the Patriot systems, Ukrainian troops or NATO personnel were the targets.

"The civilized world does not need this organization. It must repent to humanity and be disbanded as a criminal entity," he wrote in an earlier post.

It is known that Ukraine has asked its Western partners for air defense, including the US-made Patriot system, to protect its energy infrastructure from Russian attacks.

NATO foreign ministers holding a two-day meeting in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, condemned what they called "continuous and senseless attacks on Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure", vowing to increase their support for Kyiv.