Why has Medvedev gone berserk?

Dmitri Medvedev’s transformation from liberal to lunatic

Medvedev in 2016, back before he lost his mind. Government.ru, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Monique Camarra, Siena

Recently in the Guardian, Shawn Walker described the mad turn of Dmitry Medvedev, the former President of Russia and now deputy head of Russia’s security council. Since March 17, when he created his Telegram profile, the once mild-mannered and technocratic Medvedev—in former years known as the hope of Western liberals—has taken to posting bloodthirsty tirades against Russia’s many enemies, real and imagined, on social media.

The objects of his vituperation include democracy, the West, and NATO. His language is unusually crude and abusive: European leaders are “lunatics,” Russia’s adversaries are “fuckers” and “degenerates,” Russia will see to it that Ukraine “disappears from the map.” Any number of irritants, he says, would justify Russia in using nuclear weapons.