Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of hell.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands and triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the Cold War superpowers came closest to nuclear war, Reuters said.
Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal modernizer as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by Westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy".
Ukraine and the West have repeatedly dismissed President Vladimir Putin's assertions that Ukraine is run by fascists who have persecuted Russian speakers. Instead, they cast the war as a brutal land grab by Moscow.
In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Medvedev said Russia had different weapons, including the ability to send all their enemies to “hell.”
Since the war began, Medvedev's rhetoric has become increasingly fierce though his published views sometimes chime with thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite.
Satan's weapons, Medvedev said, were "intricate lies. And our weapon is the truth. That is why our cause is right. That is why victory will be ours!"
