MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Encouraging separatism in the West, which promotes ideas of dismembering Russia, could serve as an antidote to its actions, Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Rodina journal.

Medvedev proposed ‘political countermeasures’ to the discourse of ‘decolonization of Russia’ by taking mirror actions that undermine "the belief in their own invulnerability on separatism issues." "In many European countries, ethnic groups, although not the largest, are eager to claim greater political and economic autonomy," Medvedev noted, listing Scots, Catalans, Basques, and other peoples across Europe.

Representatives of these ethnic groups, Medvedev asserted, "amid the adventurous and destructive policies of EU leadership, which is pushing the once prosperous union into the abyss of militarization and possible war on the eastern front, clearly do not wish to go to slaughter, wanting to physically survive." "Therefore, they naturally gravitate toward autonomy," Medvedev believes.

"Separatism is a gamble that can be played by two," the politician concluded. "All destructive Western forces, engrossed in modern practices of neocolonialism, should remember this."