The Ukrainian government responded to President Donald Trump redeploying two nuclear-powered submarines “in the region” to deter Russia, saying the move had shut up Kremlin loudmouths.
Top Volodymyr Zelensky ally Andriy Yermak praised President Trump’s submarine redeployment on Monday morning, stating “the concept of ‘peace through strength’ works… Russia understands only force”.
President Trump had first floated the nuclear submarine deterrent on Friday in response to a combative and threatening message published by Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian President who found a new place in semi-retirement on the national security council, and on social media as threat-maker in chief. On Thursday, Medvedev responded to remarks by President Trump by twisting a metaphor about American zombie-genre films, warning of danger to America and stating “Russia is right in everything and will continue to go its own way”.
Yet as observed by Ukraine, since this outburst and President Trump’s steely response the usual constant output from Medvedev on his various social media channels has totally evaporated. Medvedev hadn’t even featured on Russian state media for days until Monday morning, and even then only as the Kremlin made a statement to play down Medvedev’s importance, insisting he can be safely ignored and that the only official pronouncements on Russian nuclear doctrine come from President Vladimir Putin himself.
As caustically observed by Ukraine’s Yermak, Trump’s submarine threat saw “one Russian alcoholic who had promised nuclear war in his X immediately fell silent”.
Following Trump’s earlier comment that “A threat was made by a former president of Russia and we’re going to protect our people” he added taht the redeployment of two U.S. nuclear submarines was now complete and “they are in the region” now, “where they have to be”.
Last month President Trump imposed and then shortened a deadline on the Russian Federation to come to the negotiating table over the Ukraine war, with its period of grace ending this Friday, August 8th. The United States is to enter into last-minute talks with Russia to facilitate a hoped-for about-face from Moscow, and President Trump confirmed overnight, stating special envoy Steve Witkoff would be heading to Moscow “Wednesday or Thursday”.
If no deal is reached, Russia faces heavy secondary tariffs, a new concept by President Trump that would see heavy levies placed not on Russia itself but that which keeps its economy alive, its international customers. China and India remain major markets for exported Russian energy like oil and gas.
To avoid China getting hammered with tariffs, Russia will need to “get a deal where people stop getting killed” this week, Trump said.
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