NATO Warned Over Supplying Ukraine With Patriot Systems

By Muhammad JuniadPublished On 05 Jan 2023

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned NATO on against providing Ukraine with Patriot missile defense systems, denouncing the alliance as a “criminal entity” for delivering arms to what he called “extremist regimes”.

Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal modernizer as president from 2008 to 2012, has increasingly emerged as one of the most hawkish proponents of Russia’s war in Ukraine, posting scathing denunciations of the West on his social media channels.

“If, as (NATO Secretary-General Jens) Stoltenberg hinted, NATO were to supply the Ukrainian fanatics with Patriot systems along with NATO personnel, they would immediately become a legitimate target of our armed forces,” Medvedev wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

It was not clear from his message whether he was referring to Patriot systems, Ukrainian forces, or NATO personnel becoming a target.

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

Ukraine has asked its Western partners for air defenses, including U.S.-made Patriot systems, to protect it from Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

NATO ministers have condemned what they call Russia’s “persistent and unconscionable attacks on Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure”, and pledged to step up their support for Kyiv.