page_title: Dmitry Medvedev
section_title: Foreign policy
hierarchical_section_title: Dmitry Medvedev / Presidency (2008–12) / Foreign policy
caption_attribution_description: Участники саммита БРИКС: Президент Бразилии Дилма Роуссефф, Дмитрий Медведев, Премьер-министр Индии Манмохан Сингх, Председатель Китайской Народной Республики Ху Цзиньтао и Президент Южно-Африканской Республики Джейкоб Зума.
context_page_description: Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician who is serving as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, headed by Vladimir Putin. He served as prime minister of Russia between 2012 and 2020. From 2008 to 2012, Medvedev served as president of Russia. Medvedev resigned along with the rest of the government on 15 January 2020 to allow President Putin to make sweeping constitutional changes; he was succeeded by Mikhail Mishustin on 16 January 2020. On the same day, Vladimir Putin appointed him deputy chairman of the Security Council.
  Regarded as more liberal than his predecessor and successor as president, Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's top agenda as president was a wide-ranging modernisation programme, aiming at modernising Russia's economy and society, and lessening the country's reliance on oil and gas. During Medvedev's tenure, the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty was signed by Russia and the United States, Russia emerged victorious in the Russo-Georgian War, and recovered from the Great Recession. Medvedev initiated a substantial law enforcement reform and launched an anti-corruption campaign, despite having been accused of corruption himself.
context_section_description: In August, during the third month of Medvedev's presidency, Russia took part in the 2008 South Ossetia war with Georgia, which drove tension in Russia–United States relations to a post–Cold War high. On 26 August, following a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly of Russia, Medvedev issued a presidential decree officially recognising Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, an action condemned by the G7.
  On 31 August 2008, Medvedev announced a shift in the Russian foreign policy under his government, built around five main principles:
  Fundamental principles of international law are supreme.
  The world will be multipolar.
  Russia will not seek confrontation with other nations.
  Russia will protect its citizens wherever they are.
  Russia will develop ties in friendly regions.
  In his address to the parliament on 5 November 2008 he also promised to deploy the Iskander missile system and radar-jamming facilities in Kaliningrad Oblast to counter the U.S. missile defence system in Eastern Europe. Following U.S. President Barack Obama's announcement on 17 September 2009, that Washington would not deploy missile-defense elements in the Czech Republic and Poland, Dmitry Medvedev said he decided against deploying Iskander missiles in Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast.
  On 21 November 2011, Medvedev claimed that the war on Georgia had prevented further NATO expansion.
  In 2011, during the performance at the Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum, President Medvedev has declared that the doctrine of Karl Marx on class struggle is extremist and dangerous. Progressive economic stratification which can be less evident in period of economic growth, leads to acute conflicts between rich and poor people in period of downturn. In such conditions, the doctrine on class struggle is being revived in many regions of the world, riots and terrorist attacks become reality, by opinion of Medvedev.
  In August 2014, President Barack Obama said: "We had a very productive relationship with President Medvedev. We got a lot of things done that we needed to get done."
  During the official visit to Armenia in 7 April 2016, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev visited the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex to pay tribute to the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Medvedev laid flowers at the Eternal Fire and honoured the memory of the victims with a minute of silence. Russia recognised the crime in 1995.
caption: BRICS leaders in 2012 – Dilma Rousseff, Medvedev, Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao, and Jacob Zuma.
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