Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said that "terrorists" should face "completely inhumane" punishment, in a post hours after an alleged attack on Crimea's Kerch Bridge that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
Video on social media on Monday has shown the extent of the damage to the bridge linking the peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014 with the Russian region of Krasnodar.
Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal investigation into what it called a "terrorist attack" it said had been carried out by "Ukrainian special services."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow knew "who was behind this terrorist act", but added, "there was no talk" about what Moscow's response would be.
However, Medvedev, who was Russia's president between 2008 and 2012 and is now deputy chairman of its Security Council, was more direct in his comments.
He wrote on Telegram that "it is impossible to fight terrorists with international sanctions, intimidation or pleas."
Although his post did not mention Ukraine or the bridge by name, he said the culprits "only understand the language of power," which would involve "completely inhumane methods."
"It is necessary to blow up their and their relatives' houses" as well as "look for and eliminate their accomplices" without trial.
"The main thing is to destroy the top leadership of terrorist formations, in whatever cracks these insects hide," he said, "it's difficult but possible." Newsweek has emailed the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for comment.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Medvedev has become renowned for using his Telegram channel to issue threats against the West, although it is unclear to what extent his views reflect Kremlin thinking.
His latest post comes on the anniversary of his warning in which he said that any Ukrainian attacks on Crimea would result in "judgment day." The peninsula has faced regular strikes and attacks in incidents that Moscow has blamed Kyiv for.
Like other sabotage incidents on Russian targets, Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the alleged attacks and suggested that it may have been a Russian provocation.
However, news outlets, including the BBC, cited Ukrainian intelligence sources in reporting that the bridge had been attacked on Monday in an operation carried out by Ukraine's internal security service, the SBU, and the Ukrainian Navy, using waterborne drones.
Meanwhile, Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote an ambiguous message on Twitter that said, "illegal structures used to deliver Russian instruments of mass murder are necessarily short-lived."
It comes amid uncertainty over how Russia might respond to the second alleged attack on the bridge in nine months, after blasts damaged part of the bridge in October 2022.
Opened in 2018, the Kerch bridge is considered by Ukraine a symbol of Russian occupation as well as a key supply route for Moscow's forces in their full-scale invasion.
