UK officers are actually “legitimate military targets” for Russia, former Kremlin president Dmitry Medvedev has warned.

The shut ally of President Vladimir Putin and his deputy on the nation’s safety council – pointedly tweeted his stark warning in English.

The sabre-rattling from Moscow got here a day after the UK’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly stated the Russian mainland was a respectable goal for Ukrainian drones.

Describing Britain as “the eternal enemy”, Medvedev stated: “Today, the UK acts as Ukraine’s ally providing it with military aid in the form of equipment and specialists, i.e., de facto is leading an undeclared war against Russia. That being the case, any of its public officials (either military, or civil, who facilitate the war) can be considered as a legitimate military target.”

His phrases appeared to pose a direct risk to any UK authorities or army official deemed by Russia to be aiding Kyiv within the conflict unleashed by Putin.

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He went on: “The UK’s Foreign Secretary Cleverly has stated that Ukraine ‘has the legitimate right to … project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself’.

“According to him, legitimate military targets beyond Ukraine’s border are part of its self-defence.” He is seen by some as angling for a return as president if Putin is pressured out by conflict failings or ill-health.

Medvedev added: “The goofy officials of the UK, our eternal enemy, should remember that within the framework of the universally accepted international law which regulatesmodern warfare, including the Hague and Geneva Conventions with their additional protocols, their state can also be qualified as being at war.”

Medvedev, as soon as seen as a Kremlin liberal, is now positioning himself as a hawk inside Putin’s interior circle.

Mr Cleverly, talking on Tuesday throughout a go to to Estonia, a Nato nation bordering Russia the place UK troops are based mostly, stated Kyiv had “the legitimate right to defend itself”.

The Foreign Secretary added earlier than jetting into Norway to satisfy Nato leaders: “It has the legitimate right to do so within its own borders, but it does also have the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”.

He appeared to go additional than Washington in backing strikes inside Russia after Ukraine was blamed for drone assaults on Moscow and elite suburbs the place Putin and different high officers stay.

The US state division stated America didn't again army motion in Russia.