Russia Threatens U.S.: We Can Put You In Your Place

Russia warned the United States that Moscow has the power to put the world's pre-eminent superpower in its place and accused the West of stoking a wild Russophobic plot to tear Russia apart, Guy Faulconbridge reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: "It will not work - Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place," Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said.

Dmitry Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, said the US had stoked "disgusting" Russophobia in an attempt to force Russia to its knees.

"It will not work - Russia has the might to put all of our brash enemies in their place," Medvedev said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the US and its European and Asian allies have slapped sanctions on Russian leaders, companies, and businessmen, cutting off Russia from much of the world economy.

President Vladimir Putin says that what he calls the special military operation in Ukraine was necessary because the US was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Russia had to defend against the "genocide" of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promptly blasted the claim and said his country is fighting for its existence and that Putin's claims of genocide are nonsense. The West says claims it wants to rip Russia apart are fiction.

Russia says that despite sanctions it can fare well without what it casts as a deceitful and decadent West led by the US. It says its bid to forge ties with the West after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union is now over and that it will develop ties with other powers such as China.

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