Putin Ally Ominously Suggests Texas Could Launch ‘Civil War’ in US

Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and ally of current Russian President Vladimir Putin, made an ominous comment on Friday about Texas potentially starting a new civil war in the United States.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been in multiple legal battles with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over his migrant deterrent tactics. As the U.S. faces a surge in illegal border crossings, Abbott has tried to fend migrants off, using razor wire along parts of the southern border and a circular saw floating barrier in the Rio Grande river. The Biden administration has called these tactics “dangerous” and “cruel.”

The Supreme Court on Monday sided with the Biden administration in a 5-4 ruling, allowing U.S. Border Patrol agents to temporarily remove the razor wire that Texas officials put up under Abbott’s orders while litigation over the issue proceeds. The ruling notably still allows Texas to place more wire along the border, but empowers the federal government to remove it when deemed necessary.

In response, Abbott on Wednesday released a statement announcing his intention to defy the Court’s order, citing the state’s “right to self-defense” against migrants crossing the border. Shortly after that, Republican governors from 25 other states signed a letter voicing support for Texas against the Court’s ruling, prompting renewed concerns from many about a new American civil war. Several conservative media personalities, including the likes of Terrence Williams, Carmine Sabia, and Graham Allen, also suggested that a civil war could be underway, but blamed President Joe Biden.

Medvedev, who currently serves as the Deputy Chair of Russia’s Security Council, released a lengthy statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday reiterating his past prediction that Texas would secede from the rest of the U.S., something the state has no legal ability to do, and potentially kickstart a civil war.

“There are known cases in history when some states tried to break away from the Union and form the Confederacy,” he wrote. “The end result was the bloody civil war which cost thousands upon thousands of lives. Either way, America can face an unsolvable constitutional crisis, and for long, fall into the abyss of a new, possibly even more destructive civil confrontation. And the Western world, its breath held, will be staring at the American mess in fear. Well, it’s their problem, anyway.”

Newsweek reached out to U.S. government officials via email on Saturday for comment.

The notion of a civil war in the U.S. has been brought up before by Russian officials. Late last month, during an appearance on state-run television, Sergei Markov, a notably pro-Putin political scientist and former adviser to the Russian leader, said that such a development would be beneficial for Russia and would see the conflict in Ukraine end in its favor in “one week.”

“We know if something really starts in America, civil war in Ukraine will stop one week later,” he said. “[Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and [Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii] Zaluzhny will race all the way over here…They would go to mediators and say, ‘Let’s immediately put an end to all this.'”