Dmitri Medvedev in one of the official photos that the Russian press took of him after the start of the invasion in Ukraine, Photo: Ekaterina Shtukina / Sputnik / Profimedia Images
Belgium's defense minister is officially in a public spat with Russia's former president over nuclear war — via a message posted on Instagram alongside Selena Gomez's song “Calm Down,” Politico reports.
Theo Francken, Belgium's defense minister, said in an interview with Belgian news site HUMO earlier this week that NATO would “wipe Moscow off the face of the earth” if the Kremlin ever attacked Brussels.
The statement prompted an angry reaction from Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and current deputy chairman of Moscow's Security Council, who is known for his outbursts on social media.
Medvedev called Francken a “moron” and warned that the Kremlin's nuclear “superweapon”, the Poseidon torpedo, had been tested this week. Medvedev described the torpedo as a “true weapon of the Apocalypse”. In response to an X platform user who suggested using Belgium as a testing ground, Medvedev added: “Then Belgium will disappear.”
On Thursday, Francken responded to Medvedev in a message on Instagram, saying: “Russia's bully-in-chief never stops with threats and insults.”
“NATO is not at war with the Russian Federation and certainly does not want to be… But the principle of 'response' of our alliance has never been challenged in its 76 years,” he said. “That's what I wanted to say in the interview for HUMO and I don't take back a word,” he emphasized.
The message was accompanied by US pop singer Selena Gomez's 2023 hit 'Calm Down' – apparently a plea to the Kremlin to calm down. The song was first released by Nigerian singer Rema in 2022 and later remixed with Gomez in 2023.
