Former Russian president turned Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Medvedev capitalized on the assassination of U.S. activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday by attempting to link the slaying to Ukrainian “murderers.”
Dmitry Medvedev, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, previously served as both prime minister and president of Russia as underling of Vladimir Putin and has mainly concerned himself in recent years with angry outbursts against Western countries supporting Ukraine, including many nuclear threats. In the wave of the Kirk assassination, Medvedev was quick to claim a link between the Ukraine war and the Utah shooter overnight.
Using “Banderite,” a shorthand descriptor in Russian political discourse that asserts the Ukrainian government is linked to infamous Second World War Nazi-SS soldiers, Medvedev compared the shooting of Kirk to that of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico last year. The Fico government, unusually among European Union member states, had declined to be drawn into the Ukraine war by supplying military equipment to Kyiv. In 2024, its leader was shot at close range by an alleged assassin.
Prime Minister Fico barely escaped with his life after an emergency surgery and has since recovered. The court case around the shooter is still ongoing but, shortly after the attack, he confessed to police that he acted in support of Ukraine, to get rid of Fico to allow a new pro-Ukraine prime minister to emerge.
Attempting to link that would-be assassination to the slaying of Kirk, Medvedev wrote: “Political crimes and assassinations have been carried out lately by a variety of left-wing liberal scum who support Banderite Kiev.” He claimed that America’s support of Ukraine means “they’re supporting murderers.”
The shooter who assassinated Charlie Kirk has not, at the time of Medvedev’s claims, been apprehended and consequently no motive for the attack has been comprehensively proven.
This is not the first time Medvedev has rushed to link all shootings of political figures to Ukraine. Just hours after an attempted shooting of Donald Trump at his golf club at West Palm Beach in September 2024, he speculated the gunman may have been an agent of the Ukrainian government.
Medvedev is well known for lurid threats against Western nations. As long reported, these have included an assassination threat against President Donald Trump if he attempts to stop the Ukraine war, repeated threats of a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom so severe the whole island would sink beneath the waves, threats to nuke Ukraine, to nuke Germany, threats to assassinate Western politicians, and threats to strike the International Criminal Court with hypersonic missiles.
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