President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he ordered U.S. nuclear submarines to be moved following comments made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The move was in response to “highly provocative statements” made by Medvedev, who is currently the deputy chief of Russia’s Security Council, in recent days, the president said.
“Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,” he added.
His post on social media did not include other details about the move, including where the submarines could be located or whether they would be positioned closer to Russia.
The social media announcement came as Trump earlier this week had warned Medvedev after he criticized current U.S. foreign policy on social media.
Trump then added that the United States and Russia “do almost no business together” and said he wants Medvedev “to watch his words” because he is “entering very dangerous territory.”
The comment was made as he said he would impose a 25 percent tariff on India as a penalty for buying Russian weapons and gas, amid a push to negotiate the end of the more than three-year war between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, he said he would shorten the timeline to impose more sanctions and other penalties on Russia from 50 days to 10 days, during a press gaggle in Scotland earlier this week.
Responding to Trump’s warning, Medvedev criticized Trump for making ultimatums to the Kremlin.
Trump’s decision to move the nuclear submarines also comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow hoped for more peace talks with Ukraine but that the momentum of the war was in Russia’s favor.
“As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations. This is a well-known general rule,” he said. “But in order to approach the issue peacefully, it is necessary to conduct detailed conversations. And not in public, but this must be done calmly, in the quiet of the negotiation process.”
Ukraine, for months, has been urging an immediate cease-fire, but Russia says it wants a final and durable settlement, not a pause. Since the peace talks began in Istanbul in May, it has conducted some of its heaviest air strikes of the war, namely on the capital Kyiv.
