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Medvedev chides 'peacemaker' Trump

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Medvedev says U.S. on the 'warpath'

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Russia says U.S. sanctions are counterproductive

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Russia says its war aims have not changed

(Changes translation from Russian in first quote, adds

additional quotes from Medvedev and Russian foreign ministry)

By Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Antonov

MOSCOW, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Former Russian President

Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday it was now absolutely clear

that the United States was Russia's adversary and that U.S.

President Donald Trump's recent steps on Ukraine amounted to an

act of war against Russia.

Trump said during the U.S. election campaign that he

would swiftly end the Ukraine war which his administration has

cast as a "proxy war" between Washington and Moscow, though he

has recently expressed frustration about President Vladimir

Putin.

Trump, who has described Russia as a "paper tiger", said

on Wednesday he had canceled a planned summit with Putin, and

the U.S. Treasury

slapped sanctions

on two of Russia's biggest oil companies.

"The United States is our adversary, and their talkative

'peacemaker' has now fully embarked on the warpath with Russia,"

Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security

Council, wrote on Telegram, referring to Trump.

"The decisions taken are an act of war against Russia.

And now Trump has fully aligned himself with loony Europe."

Putin, paramount leader since the last day of 1999,

remains the final voice on Russian policy though Medvedev, an

arch-hawk who has repeatedly goaded Trump on social media, gives

a sense of hardline thinking within the elite.

Trump in August said that he had ordered two U.S.

nuclear submarines to move closer to Russia in response to what

he called "highly provocative" comments from Medvedev about the

risk of war.

Medvedev said that the move of the "Trumpian pendulum"

simply meant that Russia could now hammer Ukraine with a wide

variety of weapons "without regard to unnecessary negotiations."

Putin, who ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in

February 2022 after eight years of fighting in the country's

east between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government

forces, has repeatedly said he is ready to talk about peace.

European leaders and Ukraine say they do not think Putin

wants peace and have cautioned that Russia might one day attack

a NATO member, a claim the Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed as

nonsense.

Russia's foreign ministry said that Moscow's aims in

Ukraine remained unchanged from 2022: that Ukraine should be

neutral, non-aligned, demilitarised and ensure the rights of

Russian speakers and Orthodox believers.

"We need a configuration of negotiated solutions that

will eliminate the root causes of the conflict and ensure

reliable peace in the context of building a Eurasian and broader

global system of indivisible security," spokeswoman Maria

Zakharova said.

She cast U.S. sanctions as extremely counterproductive

and warned that if the Trump administration followed the example

of previous U.S. administrations then it would fail.