On August 23, 150 Ukrainian flags, symbolizing the victims of the war in eastern Ukraine, stood in front of the Russian embassy in Kiev.
Image: Reuters
Ukrainian President Zelenskyi wants a summit meeting with Putin. Former President Medvedev is now giving five reasons why he does not want any contact with the Ukrainian leadership at all.
D.Mitrij Medvedev does not have an easy role in Russia. On the one hand, the 56-year-old leader of the power party United Russia is the only surviving politician under whom President Vladimir Putin was prime minister. On the other hand, Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012 is less an interruption of Putin’s rule than a concession to formal legal requirements (a term limit in the constitution) that did not correspond to the real balance of power. Putin’s constitutional reform last year, which allows the 69-year-old permanent president to remain in office until 2036, should end the need to present a successor before the next elections in 2024. Even before the reform, hardly anyone believed that Medvedev would be called up again as his successor. Because the main problem with the former president is that he is not taken seriously. Medvedev is considered a loser.
This was evident in the speedy handling of the bogus liberal legacies of his presidency, including the imprisonment of prominent people close to him. As prime minister, Medvedev had to implement an unpopular pension reform in 2018, which further damaged his popularity. The anti-corruption hunter Alexej Navalnyj, who in 2017 attributed hidden real estate wealth in Russia and Tuscany to Medvedev through foundations, gleefully impaled that very few Russians thought Medvedev was cunning.
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