Image Credit: YEKATERINA SHTUKINA / Contributor / Getty 
Following President Donald Trump’s successful capture of Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro, Russia’s deputy chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that Ukraine’s Dictator Vladimir Zelensky and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz could face a similar fate at the hands of Russia.
“His removal is something that could happen in the near future,” Medvedev said of Zelensky on Sunday. “After the Maduro precedent…it would be more justified.”
The former Russian President also said that the precedent Trump set with Maduro opens up the possibility for a snatch-and-grab of Germany’s leader by Russia. He made the comment in an interview with TASS (the Russian News Agency) on Sunday.
“The kidnapping of the neo-Nazi Merz could be an excellent twist in this carnival of events,” Medvedev said, going on to explain that the Maduro capture has given a “grain of reality to this scenario.”
In a Berlin press conference on Monday, German political journalist Pauline Jackels questioned German government spokesman Sebastian Hille on the matter, and asked if the government is taking Medvedev’s comments seriously, which he said they are.
“As you can imagine, we have of course taken note of these statements, and, as you can also probably imagine, the federal government condemns any form of such statements and threats in the strongest possible terms,” Hille said.
RT detailed the conversation further:
Jackels pressed the spokesman further, inquiring whether the government takes a “purely hypothetical threat” of kidnapping a foreign leader and “condemns it in the strongest terms,” but does not do so if such an incident actually happens. The spokesman, however, failed to provide any coherent answer.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I can gladly repeat what I just said,” Hille stated, insisting that it was time to wrap up the press conference altogether.
As for Merz himself, the German leader neither condemned nor supported the Maduro capture.
“The legal assessment of the U.S. intervention is complex and requires careful consideration,” Merz said regarding Trump’s capture of Maduro.
Some posit that the Venezuela / Russian connection is deeper than what is being commonly discussed. Removing Maduro may be a move against a possible Russian staging ground for anti-U.S. operations. This gives an added layer of consideration to Russian statements on preforming similar operations.
