Putin Ally Vows to Be 'More Ruthless and Deadly' Against Ukraine's Backers

Russian politician Dmitry Medvedev, an ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, vowed on Saturday to be "more ruthless and deadly" to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) supporting Ukraine in its fight against Moscow's invasion.

In an online post, Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia who previously served as the president and prime minister of Russia, attacked NGOs like the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as philanthropist George Soros, whose organization Open Society Foundations recently urged the international community to respect the authority of the ICC.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 for alleged war crimes relating to the deportation and "illegal transfer" of Ukrainian children.

"How great it feels to receive acknowledgement of the effectiveness of our combined effort against the neonazi regime in Kiev! It came from bastardly organisations such as NGOs belonging to the disgusting old geezer Soros, who turned to the ICC over our humble work," Medvedev wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday.

Soros, a Hungarian-American billionaire hedge fund manager, has been critical of Russia's invasion, telling the audience at the Munich Security Conference in February 2023 that "Europe's support for Ukraine must be preserved."

Medvedev's post continued: "Such NGOs and their masters are accomplices of the terrorists who killed more than 20 of our peaceful citizens just yesterday. That really motivates to keep up working against the foul nazi clique. We will be even angrier, even more ruthless and deadly while exposing all kinds of a******** and c**** of the bandera regime and their patrons. Igni atque ferro vastare!"

Russian officials accused Ukraine of killing at least 25 people and injuring 35 more in the Russian-occupied eastern territories of Kherson and Luhansk on Friday with a series of missile strikes.

Newsweek reached out to Ukraine's foreign ministry and Open Society Foundations via email as well as the Russian government via online form for comment.

Stepan Bandera was the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists during World War II. He is a divisive figure, with many in western Ukraine seeing him as a freedom fighter against Soviet Union domination. Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine think of him as a fascist ally to Nazi Germany head Adolf Hitler.

Bandera is employed in Russian propaganda and Putin has used it to justify his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Moscow needed to "denazify" Kyiv. Ukraine, the United States and multiple experts on the region have denied Russia's claim that the war-torn country—whose president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish—is corrupted by Nazis.

Last month, Open Society Foundations issued a statement calling on countries to "respect the prosecutorial and judicial independence of the court, and reminds all 124 ICC members of their obligations under the Rome Statute that established the court of their specific obligations to cooperate with and assist the court—and to execute warrants of arrest."

While the statement was focused on the ICC's decision to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, it also mentioned Russia.

"While the United States is not a member of the court and has a long-standing objection to its jurisdiction extending to nationals of non-member countries, the Biden administration and senior members of Congress affirmatively supported the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants in March 2023 against Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Russia, like Israel, has not acceded to the Rome Statute and is not an ICC member states," the statement read.