"You're not in power yet but already lying like Goebbels," Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and prime minister, wrote on Telegram on Thursday, comparing Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Medvedev, who served a single term as Russian president from 2008 to 2012 and is currently deputy head of Russia's Security Council, was referring to comments Merz made during a German parliamentary debate on defense spending. The German politician said Russia was not only waging war against Ukraine but against all of Europe.

Merz said Russia's war was "a war against our country, too, taking place every day with attacks on our data networks, the destruction of our utility lines, arson attacks, contract killings, espionage against military bases [and] disinformation campaigns."

Medvedev interpreted these remarks in the context of World War Two, saying: "Nazi Germany attacked us like this from 1941-1945. We know how it ended. Bad start, Fritz! Hope it ends the same way for you."

Domestically, the Kremlin portrays its war of aggression against Ukraine as a defensive war against the collective "West," attempting to cast it as a continuation of World War Two, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War and a fundamental cornerstone of the country's national identity.

Medvedev was born in 1965, two decades after the end of the Second World War and the suicide of Nazi propaganda chief Goebbels, who had spent his career raging against "undesirable" people, organizations and works of art which didn't fit Nazi racist ideology.

German Council on Foreign Relations declared 'undesirable'

Meanwhile, back in 2025, the prosecutor general in Moscow on Thursday declared the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) an "undesirable" organization, accusing the renowned research institute of supporting military and financial aid for Ukraine and sanctions against Moscow.

The classification as "undesirable" is tantamount to a ban on activities in Russia, and Russian citizens who cooperate with such organizations are liable to be prosecuted.

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin continues to seal off Russia," wrote the German Foreign Ministry on social media, adding that it would continue to support independent research and academic exchanges in Russia.

Other German organizations categorized as "undesirable" by the Kremlin since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 include the German Historical Institute in Moscow and the German Association for East European Studies.

Moscow forced DW to close its Moscow bureau in 2022. 

Edited by: Sean Sinico