Belgium’s defense minister is officially beefing with Russia’s former president over nuclear war — in an Instagram post set to “Calm Down” by Selena Gomez.
Yes, that’s the world we’re living in.
Theo Francken, the Belgian defense chief, vowed earlier this week that NATO “will flatten Moscow” if the Kremlin ever attacks Brussels in an interview with Belgian news website HUMO.
That triggered a ferocious response from Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current deputy chairman of its Security Council, who is prone to outbursts on social media.
Medvedev called Francken an “imbecile” and warned the Kremlin’s Poseidon nuclear super-weapon had been tested this week, calling it a “true doomsday weapon.” In response to an X user who suggested using Belgium as a testing ground, Medvedev added, “Then Belgium will disappear.”
On Thursday morning Francken hit back at Medvedev in an Instagram post, saying, “Russia’s bully-in-chief never stops threatening and insulting.”
“NATO is not at war with the Russian Federation, and certainly doesn’t want to be … But the ‘strike back’ principle of our alliance has been undisputed for 76 years,” he said. “That’s what I meant in the HUMO interview, and I don’t retract a word of it.”
The post was set to American pop singer Selena Gomez’s 2023 hit song “Calm Down,” apparently a plea from Francken to the Kremlin to chill. The song was first released by Nigerian singer Rema in 2022 and remixed with Gomez in 2023.
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