Ex-Russian president Medvedev, compares Ukraine to a land that never existed

Dmitry Medvedev , the Russian former president and who is currently the Security Council Deputy Chairman compared Ukraine on Sunday to Sannikov Land, a phantom island in the Arctic Ocean that was included on 19th century maps but was later found not to exist.

“The Ukrainian junta keeps saying that the condition for negotiations is reaching some of their 1991 borders. These are the borders of the regions of Russia and once the provinces of the Russian Empire, and not the mythical Ukraine,” Medvedev claimed on Telegram. “Ukraine is the Sannikov Land founded by Lenin. Was not for long and disappeared from the map. There is no such land,” he added, stressing Kiev is an “occupied” Russian city.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted Kiev will only be willing to negotiate with Russia after reaching 1991 borders, when the country gained independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Sanikov never existed

Russian geologist and science fiction writer Vladimir Obruchev fictionalized this phantom island in his novel Sannikov Land (1926). In the story, the island provided the last escape for a tribe of Onkilon (this was one of the older names for Yuit), pushed away from the mainland by other Siberian peoples. The (fictional) Onkilon were thought to be extinct, and were discovered by a small expedition looking for the island and eventually stranded at it.

Obruchev provided a reasonable justification of the possibility of the described things and events. The island turned out to be a crater of a volcano and a warm place, heated by the volcano. It also hosted a tribe of Neanderthals (called “Vampoo”) and mammoths. In the end of the story the volcano erupts and destroys the land.

In 1973, a science fiction film based on Obruchev’s book, called The Land of Sannikov, was released in the Soviet Union.

Sannikov Land is used as a location in British horror podcast The Magnus Archives in Episode 101, “Another Twist”. It is described as a place that does not exist and has never existed, in association with an entity known as “The Spiral,” which personifies madness and deceit.

Medvedev , a huge disappointment for Russian liberals

The 57-year-old former lawyer once represented the hopes of Russian liberals seeking democratic change. When Putin picked him to become president in 2008, many put doubts about the motives of the senior partner in the ruling “tandem” aside and latched onto the idea that reforms were in the offing.

Fifteen years later, a different Medvedev jumps out from the page. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 and has remained in the Kremlin ever since, steadily shutting the door on dissent and bringing the country into increasing confrontation with Kyiv and the West.

And in 2021 , as Putin narrowed his inner circle to a handful of hard-liners, launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, and taken the clampdown in Russia to new levels, Medvedev has done a flip — at least verbally — to stay in his patron’s good graces.

Medvedev, who owes his political career and his seemingly enormous wealth to Putin has been attacking Ukraine’s leaders ever since the Russian invasion was launched , calling them “weak,” “nonindependent,” and corrupt and adding there was no sense in negotiating with them.

To many Kremlin observers, Medvedev could have been talking about himself. They say that Medvedev — who lost a lot of power and influence when he was ousted as prime minister is trying to “stay relevant” politically.

News Agencies