Medvedev’s ‘No More Rules’ Threat Exposes Escalation Risk Far Beyond Ukraine
Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev is publicly declaring that traditional laws of war ‘are no longer needed’ in Moscow’s fight with Kyiv, signaling a political green light for a far harsher campaign. The rhetoric sharpens legal and nuclear anxieties from Ukraine’s front lines to the Strait of Hormuz, where Medvedev now calls shipping pressure a ‘Persian nuclear weapon’. Readers will see how one man’s words reflect Moscow’s risk calculus — and why other capitals are taking note.
Russia’s war in Ukraine entered a more openly dangerous phase on 20 June, not because of a new weapon, but because a senior Kremlin figure said the quiet part out loud: that the rules should no longer apply.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current deputy chair of the Security Council, said that in Moscow’s confrontation with what he called “neo-Nazi Kyiv”, there can “no longer be any rules” for how Russia fights. He said the only remaining limit should be a ban on the “deliberate killing of civilians” and explicitly dismissed the Hague Conventions on the laws and customs of war as no longer needed. The comments were framed as a response to what he described as “massive terrorist attacks” against Russian cities that he claimed were intensifying.
The remarks, posted on 20 June, do not change Russia’s formal treaty obligations overnight, but they matter because of who is speaking and how closely his rhetoric has tracked later actions in the past. Medvedev is not the commander-in-chief, yet he sits near the center of Russia’s national security apparatus and often voices the hardline positions that others in Moscow do not state so bluntly. When such a figure tells the Russian public and the armed forces that “there are no longer any rules” in dealing with Ukraine, it signals political cover for tactics that push closer to legal red lines, even if they stop short of openly targeting civilians.
For Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, this kind of language translates into a practical fear: that Russian commanders will feel freer to approve strikes on dual-use infrastructure, energy systems, bridges, and urban logistics hubs that keep cities functioning. For Russian troops, it raises the risk that following orders could leave them more exposed to future war crimes investigations, even if Moscow now dismisses the Hague framework. And for families on both sides, it suggests a war that may grow more brutal and less constrained as it drags on.
Medvedev’s warning was not limited to Ukraine. In a separate comment, he described the Strait of Hormuz as a “Persian nuclear weapon” and said it would be used as such, casting the narrow oil and gas chokepoint as a kind of strategic deterrent for Iran and its allies. The phrase does not refer to an actual nuclear device, but to the ability to threaten global energy flows by disrupting or blocking traffic through one of the world’s most critical maritime corridors.
For governments and markets, the message is clear enough: Russia’s leadership is prepared to treat energy chokeholds and legal gray zones as legitimate levers of power. In Ukraine, that can mean infrastructure becoming a front line. Around Hormuz, it means tanker crews, insurers, and Gulf energy exporters must factor political threats into every voyage plan and every premium calculation, even without a formal blockade.
This is part of a broader pattern in which Moscow blends legal nihilism at home with strategic ambiguity abroad. In Ukraine, Russian officials accuse Kyiv of terrorism and use that label to justify drone and missile campaigns that have repeatedly hit power systems and urban areas. In the Gulf, they amplify Iran’s ability to menace shipping while pushing back on Western sanctions that rely heavily on maritime enforcement. The throughline is a willingness to blur distinctions between civilian and military tools, even while insisting that civilians themselves will not be “deliberately” targeted.
The shareable truth behind Medvedev’s threat is stark: once a nuclear power starts saying the rules no longer matter, every strike and every sanction carries a little more risk than it did the day before. The question for other capitals is not whether they trust Medvedev, but whether they believe commanders in the field will hear his words as encouragement.
The next signals to watch will be in targeting and maritime behavior. In Ukraine, any visible shift in Russian strikes toward critical infrastructure with limited direct military value will test how far commanders interpret this rhetorical license. Around the Strait of Hormuz, increased harassment of commercial shipping or new threats from Iran-linked forces would show whether the “Persian nuclear weapon” line is mere bluster or a prelude to more aggressive use of the region’s chokepoints.
Sources
- OSINT