{"id":673925,"date":"2026-01-04T19:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673925\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T19:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:52:14","slug":"russias-medvedev-floats-kidnapping-scenario-involving-germanys-merz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/673925\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Medvedev floats kidnapping scenario involving Germany\u2019s Merz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Russia\u2019s former president Dmitry Medvedev said he could envisage abduction operations against other world leaders similar to the US arrest of <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/nicolas-maduro?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Nicolas Maduro<\/a> in Venezuela, naming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz among them.\u201cThe kidnapping of the neo-Nazi <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/friedrich-merz?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Merz<\/a> could be an excellent twist in this carnival of events,\u201d Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia\u2019s Security Council, was quoted as saying by state news agency TASS on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Such a scenario was not unrealistic, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are even grounds for prosecuting him in Germany, so it would be no loss, especially since the citizens are suffering needlessly,\u201d <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/dmitry-medvedev?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Medvedev<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Medvedev, who served as Russian president from 2008 to 2012, has in recent years emerged as one of the Kremlin\u2019s most outspoken hardliners, frequently delivering aggressive rhetorical attacks against Ukraine and the West.<\/p>\n<p>He also said claims by the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/topics\/trump-administration?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"noopener\">Trump administration<\/a> that Maduro \u2013 who was arrested in a US military operation over the weekend and taken to New York \u2013 was illegitimate did not withstand scrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s former president Dmitry Medvedev said he could envisage abduction operations against other world leaders similar to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[54806,159692,34051,2000,299,1945,15439,1824,14431,660,19275,10546,2301,37887,1411,332,204994,657,658],"class_list":{"0":"post-673925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-alexander-khinshtein","9":"tag-belgorod","10":"tag-dmitry-medvedev","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-friedrich-merz","14":"tag-german-chancellor","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-kharkiv","17":"tag-kremlin","18":"tag-kursk","19":"tag-kyiv","20":"tag-moscow","21":"tag-nicolas-maduro","22":"tag-paris","23":"tag-russia","24":"tag-tass","25":"tag-ukraine","26":"tag-volodymyr-zelensky"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115838578998738009","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}