Former Russian President Medvedev Op-Ed Sees U.S. Elections as Replay of Maidan Coup

Jan. 16 , 2021 (EIRNS)—Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and former President of the Russian Federation, commented on the implications of the U.S. elections in a lengthy op-ed for TASS today, headlined, “Dmitry Medvedev: America 2.0. After the Election.” While his comments focus on what he calls the faults of an antiquated system, making the usual criticism of the Electoral College and the states’ control of voting procedures, he nonetheless highlighted the election fraud, and asserted that the events in Washington are reminiscent of the 2014 Maidan in Kiev, describing the censorship of President Trump as a rise of “cyber totalitarianism.”

Medvedev opens by establishing that U.S. elections also have global implications: “Elections in this country, especially when there is a transfer of power from one political force to the other, can trigger significant changes in the global economic development, seriously affecting the existing institutions of international law and global security system.... It would be nice if the U.S. political establishment realized this responsibility.”

Furthermore, he states,

“U.S. officials in the OSCE constantly point to the need for the OSCE participating States to comply with the recommendations by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights drawn up based on the results of its election observation activities. In the meantime, the U.S. itself fails to act on the relevant recommendations....”

As for the events on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, he wrote: “It was hard to believe that the events resembling so much Ukraine’s Maidan and other color revolutions that unfolded in recent years across a wide range of countries, including those in the post‑Soviet space, were broadcasted live from the United States all over the world. The techniques previously used by Washington for democratization of other countries backfired. The cold civil war that had been raging in the U.S. for a few months reached its climax....

“There is one more critical issue.... I am talking about the unprecedented role in public politics of social networks and new media, and, accordingly, of private IT companies that own those platforms....” He cited the suspension of President Donald Trump’s Twitter account which has “85 million followers,” along with the censorship his other accounts that have a total of “about 200 million followers.”

Stating that the tech giants trashed the 75 million Trump voters and hundreds of millions of his supporters, he writes, “Isn’t it, indeed, a specter of cyber totalitarianism that is gradually overwhelming the society, taking away from it (and potentially the entire world) the opportunity to see the reality for what it is? But even if Donald Trump leaves the politics for good and the Tech Giants wipe out his digital footprint, the minds will remain hugely polarized....”