A nationalist, pro-imperial post calling Georgia and Kazakhstan “artificial” creations briefly appeared on the VKontakte (VK) social network account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev before being taken down and attributed to hackers.
The post in question appeared on Medvedev’s VK account, which has 2.3 million followers, on August 1 and was removed within about 10 minutes. Still, it was viewed about 2,000 times, according to multiple screenshots posted on social media, and also placed online by Russian TV personality Ksenia Sobchak. Her post quickly went viral with nearly 450,000 views in just a few hours.
Medvedev’s aide, Oleg Osipov, on August 2 denied the ex-president had written the post, adding that it appeared on the account after it was hacked.
“VK’s administration, and those who are supposed to do the job, will take care of those who hacked the account,” Osipov wrote on Telegram.
Medvedev, who positioned himself as a liberal politician while he served as president from 2008 to 2012, has completely changed his image since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, publicly calling to fight against the West and what he called “nationalists” in Ukraine. He has also said Russia should seek to expand its borders.
The controversial text in the post on VK said that Georgia never existed as a country, while it calls Kazakhstan an artificial country and accuses the Central Asian nation’s authorities of genocide against Russians. The territories of the two countries must be returned to Russia, it adds.
Moscow is “getting ready to undertake the next move to restore the borders of our homeland,” it says, adding that the invasion of Ukraine in February will liberate the country and return “lands that were taken away from us.”
-Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty