Key Points and Summary – Just days before President Trump’s Friday ceasefire deadline for Ukraine, Russia is escalating its nuclear rhetoric.
-Former President Dmitry Medvedev announced that Russia is abandoning its self-imposed moratorium on deploying intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles, creating a “new reality” for NATO.
-This defiance comes as a Russian journalist reports that Vladimir Putin is unfazed by Trump’s threats and has “lost faith” in reaching any agreements with the U.S. According to the analysis, Putin sees the ongoing war as his primary tool for controlling Russian society, suggesting a last-minute deal is highly unlikely.
NATO vs. Russia Tensions on Ukraine Keep Rising
The last time former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made an incendiary social media post, it led to President Donald Trump announcing that he was moving nuclear submarines closer to the region.
Now, the deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council is warning that Russia’s adversaries are facing a “new reality,” and that the Russians are no longer bound by a previous treaty limiting their use of short and medium-range nuclear missiles, NBC News reported.
That treaty is the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, in which the US and Russia agreed to refrain from “deploying ground-based missiles with ranges between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (311 to 3,418 miles),” per NBC. However, the US withdrew from the treaty during Trump’s first term, after accusing Russia of routinely violating it.
But now, per the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russians are backing away from “efforts to maintain restraint in this area” and “no longer considers itself bound by the corresponding previously adopted self-restrictions.”
The ex-president, per NBC, said Russia’s move to back out of the INF treaty is “the result of NATO countries’ anti-Russian policy,” and that “this is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.”
The comments came as Trump’s deadline for Russia to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine, or else face secondary tariffs, was just three days away.
With the president’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, heading to Moscow for negotiations on Wednesday, Russia is not sounding like it’s anywhere close to giving in to the threats.
How Important is Russia’s Medvedev?
One expert on Russia, Mark Galeotti of Mayak Intelligence, cautioned not to read too much into Medvedev’s threats.
“Medvedev is a professional troll these days. Trying to dig too much meaning into his various iterations is a fool’s errand,” he told NBC. “Indeed, sometimes I wonder if his statements are precisely intended to tie us into knots as we try to interpret them!”
Putin Matters and That 1 Reason He Won’t End the War in Ukraine
No one will doubt, though, that what Vladimir Putin says and does matters. And in a New York Times op-ed published Tuesday, Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar writes that Putin does not appear to care about pressure from the US, or that his onetime ally, Trump, has expressed public frustration with him.
“President Trump has not scared the Russian elite. Last week, he declared himself ‘disappointed’ with Vladimir Putin. He imposed a shorter deadline—expiring this Friday—for an end to the war in Ukraine, threatening severe economic punishment if it was missed. In Moscow, no one took it seriously. After weathering more than three years of sanctions, the Kremlin believes it can handle anything thrown at it — that’s if Mr. Trump even follows through, which many in Moscow doubt,” Zygar writes.
The author also cites Russian sources claiming that the Russian leader has “concluded that negotiating with the United States makes no sense and that compromise is pointless. Hostility, not friendship, is the policy.”
Trump returned to the White House promising to deliver a quick end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and also to improve relations between the US and Russia, and an eventual lifting of sanctions. Per the op-ed, Russia had some interest in that when Trump first came back into office, but that posture seems to be a thing of the past.
“Everyone now realizes that Mr. Putin has no desire to end the war, which remains his main tool for controlling society. Worse, he has lost faith in the very idea of reaching agreements with the United States,” Zygar writes. “According to the people I talked to, his view is that any American administration, by definition, is temporary — and so any deal with it is meaningless. Mr. Trump is in charge today, but in three years, he might not be. Personal rapport means nothing. To Mr. Putin, it is no longer possible to build a working relationship with America.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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Tindmish
August 5, 2025 at 9:30 pm
Now is the time to call the west’s big bluff !
The west, especially America, has refused to recognize the sticking point of the whole bloody conflict.
What’s that.
That is the very deadly and totally unacceptable presence of the nazis in eastern Ukraine or the Donbass region.
Russia must now up the stakes and employ nukes to force the nazis to leave Donbass as quickly and as hurriedly as possible.
To hell with trump’s ultimatum.
Trump has been behaving like a pendulum, swaying right and left, and left and right.
That’s caused by the growing big dark cloud looming over his presidency, which is very extremely threatening and dangerous, posed by trump’s past shady relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump could this year be ousted from office if he’s found to be lying and hiding or covering up his knowledge about the work of Epstein.
Thus trump is now trying to blow up Europe.
Russia must today seize the initiative and send the nazis fleeing back to their fascist strongholds in western Ukraine.
Swamplaw Yankee
August 6, 2025 at 8:36 am
UNFAZED is right! All of the tsarlings of the muscovite elite are unfazed by the MAGA POTUS white House brain trust! More than UNFAZED. Dismissive with disdain!
Ever since their marxist blood brother POTUS Obama pushed his Democrat Cabal to betray the WEST with his unilateral greenlighting of the 2014 re-start of the 1000 year old genocide of Ukrainians, the theft of Ukrainian soil was guaranteed by Obama for the years that Obama could facilitate Putin’s grab of Ukrainian soil.
Things still are groovey with the MAGA POTUS white house staff. Trump is unable to deal with the Putin “long game” of 1000 years of genocide of Ukrainians. It does not compute, yes, no way does it compute in Trump’s brain.
Trump thinks his spa “girls” at his home in Florida were raided by his ole bud Jeffrey Epstein. Hey, the orc ethnic russian peasant has been “raiding”, that is “Harvesting” little Ukrainian girls for 1000 years. It does not matter what costume the orc russian tsarlings wear in whatever past century. Monghol, imperial, czarist, bolshevik, soviet, federation costumes are like Halloween. Halloween comes and its time to dress up, “Harvest” little Ukrainian girls and try to genocide those Ukrainians.
Notice how the orc muscovite tsarlings never take credit for intentionally starving 20,000,000 Ukrainian families in 1932-33! The Putin shills all scream out, incorrect, big lies. More Jews were killed by our NAZI compadres. So, we ruskies like, love, to blab about those NAZI camps, not our Gulag killing camps.
In 1616 Ukrainian Fathers had to fight/defeat the Ottoman empires huge Black Sera sex trade fleet, fight/defeat the muslim army guarding the dungeons of Caffe holding the Christian children and fight the fleeing gold filled caravans with fleeing sex traders running back to their families in Moscow. All is 1616.
The MAGA POTUS staff have zero time for such “inconvenient” Ukrainian history.
The MAGA POTUS elite have no qualms about selling out the WEST and giving stolen Ukrainian soil to Putin, Obama style. Obama is the marxist architect of the betrayal of the WEST and the greenlighting of the 2014 Putin “little green groomer” military operation to mass abduct Ukrainian children for re-documentation + air shipment to very, very needy russian language teachers.
Since the MAGA POTUS Cabal keeps its mouth shut very tight about the return of illegally occupied Ukrainian farms, factories, fields and family homes, their is zero difference between Trump and 2014 POTUS Obama. Zip.
The fake scam of some con fake negotiation that Trump self appointed himself to lead just makes every russian deviate even more determined to kill Ukrainians at a higher speed. Every Ruskie who loves and adores Putin for his 11 year streak of free, no-cost, free shipments of “Lolita” Ukrainian girls to their muscovite door step knows that Putin can outplay trump at their orc long game.
The author is right that the whole ethnic russian muscovite elite are “UNFAZED” by the MAGA POTUS Trump. Trump just has a cheap MSM trick of the Whackoff Weirdo” travelling con show to start his “Negotiation” to sell out Ukraine as fast as the Putin genociders will allow him to.
As long as the USA MSM gets lots of lineage out of the Betrayal of the WEST “negotiation” show, Trump can glory in the fact that he, himself, did whatever to
destroy independent Ukraine for his version of “peace”.
The MSM of Europe or the world might complain, but the Yankee MSM will ignore them, close their media to any Ukrainian concerns about genocide or stolen ancient soil.
After all, the USA MSM pushed for many post war years to ignore the eradication of a free ancient people, the Han Chinese.
What are the high odds that Trump has the inner guts to demand in public that Putin return every square foot of illegally stolen Ukraine: immediately? Or, fully compensate each and every mass abducted Ukrainian child with $10,000,000 in US gold bullion as reparation for 11 years of ruskie style table top dancing.
Yeah, every ethnic russian russian peasant is happily “UNFAZED” at Trump slips into “delerium” or “MCI” if any of the above is mentioned about his ole bud, Putin. -30-
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