"Perhaps certain parties would like to return to the primitive division of the world into 'right' and 'wrong', into 'us' and 'them'," he said, adding that, "In Russia we are certain that this time has gone forever."
"Just as it is impossible to restore the Berlin Wall, it is impossible to return to the Cold War. The world is moving on, and we have to adapt and not become fixated on the past - it is much more productive to learn lessons from it," he added.
The Russian leader, speaking in St Petersburg at the Russian-German forum 'Petersburg Dialogue,' attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also made reference to Russia's five-day war with Georgia, which began when Georgian forces attacked breakaway South Ossetia on August 8, killing hundreds of civilians and a number of Russian peacekeepers.
Speaking of "hypocrisy and recklessness, exacerbated by aggressive nationalism," he said that, "this is not the first time that the world has faced such an aberration and not the first time that people have fallen under the influence of unscrupulous propaganda."
Russia has criticized Western powers for their support of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the war over South Ossetia, and also the Western media for what it calls 'biased' reporting.
Russian political commentators have pointed out that the Georgian attack on South Ossetia, which led to Russia's operation to "force Georgia to peace," was barely mentioned in mainstream Western media reports on the war, and that Russia was portrayed as the aggressor in the conflict. Reports in the Russian media have also claimed that CNN broadcast footage of South Ossetia after the attack on the republic as 'evidence' of Russian bombing raids in the Georgian city of Gori.
Saakashvili has said that Georgian forces were responding to a Russian incursion into the South Caucasus state. However, as many Russian analysts have pointed out, even if this were true, it would not explain Georgia's attack on Tskhinvali, during which residential buildings were bombarded by Georgian artillery. South Ossetian authorities have said that over 1,500 people died in the attack on the tiny provincial capital.
Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin earlier criticized the U.S. stance on the conflict, saying, "The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing - the attempt to turn white into black, black into white and to adeptly portray victims of aggression as aggressors and place the responsibility for the consequences of the aggression on the victims."
Medvedev also warned world powers against playing the role of mega-regulators in the global financial system, and urged joint action to overcome the current financial crisis, which he said stemmed from "financial egoism."
"The latest developments have proved that no economy, no matter how powerful and strong it is, may assume the powers of a mega-regulator," he said. "We need new mechanisms for adopting collective decisions and collective responsibility."
