(Editor’s note: This article, originally published on June 6, 2022, and updated previously, is now updated to add new instances of eliminationist rhetoric by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, state television host Sergey Mardan, propagandist Anna Dolgareva, former Children’s Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov, and more. New material is noted in red as “New” or “Updated.” An earlier update is available in Ukrainian here. Stay tuned for an updated translation soon. (Ця стаття також доступна українською тут. Слідкуйте за оновленим перекладом найближчим часом.))
Long before Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine in February and even prior to his 2014 invasion and capture of Crimea, analysts noted with alarm a different kind of escalation – the threatening rhetoric against Ukraine by Putin and actors within his control. Dating at least to 2008 or 2009, increasingly hostile language laid the groundwork for rejecting Ukraine’s existence as a state, a national group, and a culture.
What follows is a compilation of publicly available statements (readers are invited to submit by email any that we may have missed).
Experts such as Francine Hirsch, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of “Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg,” have pointed to such language as evidence of genocidal intent toward the Ukrainian people. Whether and how the concept of “genocide” applies to Russia’s campaign against Ukraine is the subject of debate, notwithstanding the reference in Article II of the Genocide Convention to “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.” A related issue under discussion is a concept often referred to as “cultural genocide,” which generally connotes the intentional destruction of a group’s identity even in the absence of mass killings. “These calls for ‘de-Ukrainization’ are an incitement to genocide: to ‘destroy, in whole or in part,’ the Ukrainian nation,” Hirsch wrote in April. And Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder, in reference to the same article in the Russian outlet RIA Novosti that prompted Hirsch’s conclusion, wrote, “Russia has just issued a genocide handbook for its war on Ukraine.”
Beth Van Schaack, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, said in a May 2022 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in response to a question about the Russian atrocities coming to light in Ukraine, “Some of the genocidal rhetoric that we’re hearing out of Russia is extremely worrying.”
A report from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights concludes that “Russia bears State responsibility for breaches of Article II and Article III (c) of the Genocide Convention,” and “that that there exists undoubtedly a very serious risk of genocide, triggering States’ duty to prevent under Article I of the Genocide Convention.” Among the evidence the report cites is a range of statements that it says constitute “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” including denying the existence of a Ukrainian identity; accusing Ukraine, contrary to evidence, of committing the very kinds of atrocities that Russia is or envisions committing; and dehumanizing rhetoric.
While analysis of Putin and Russian rhetoric has been extensive, it can make for a fragmented picture of the trend, with selections from relevant passages scattered across articles, social media, books, audio, and video. The following compilation seeks to collect examples of these statements in one place. They are organized in chronological order and necessarily non-exhaustive, since such declarations occur at high frequency in various media controlled by the Russian government, as expert monitors of Russian media such as Julia Davis and Francis Scarr have found.
The statements range from formal presidential addresses and articles by Putin and other officials to commentary on Russian state television and on social media. Sources include (but are not limited to) news articles; books; the Kremlin’s online repository of speeches and addresses; Russian state-controlled news agencies, including RIA Novosti and Kommersant; and posts on Twitter and Telegram.
This compilation, in chronological order, focuses on key words, phrases, and/or themes that appear to express intent on the part of the Russian government to eliminate Ukraine or Ukrainians as a nation-state, people, or culture. Recurring concepts include the notion of historical Russian and Ukrainian unity, denial of the Ukrainian nation, and the conceptualization of “Ukrainianism” as a fascist threat to Russian sovereignty. As the war progresses, it is vital to track these statements of intent for use by analysts, diplomats, policymakers, prosecutors, and more.
With thanks to Maksym Vishchyk for contributing updates for this list.
(Readers may also be interested in Compilation of Countries’ Statements Calling Russian Actions in Ukraine “Genocide” by Elizabeth Whatcott.)
Collected Eliminationist Rhetoric by Putin and Associates
| Russian President Vladimir Putin in reported comment to U.S. President George W. Bush – The NATO bloc broke up into blocking packages – Kommersant (April 7, 2008) |
- “You don’t understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us.” (Reported based on anonymous source as a Putin comment to Bush during the NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania; reported in English on May 25, 2009, in Time Magazine. Neither that nor subsequent references identified to date indicated any effort to corroborate, and some analysts cast doubt on whether Putin made the comment. Some references translated “state” as “country,” which would be a more likely meaning, as in a sovereign State.)
|
| Putin – “Russia: The Ethnicity Issue” – Nezavisimaya Gazeta (January 23, 2012), (alternative translation by Russian site Top War) |
- Russia, with its diverse set of languages, traditions, and cultures, has an “ethnicity issue” that is “without any doubt a fundamental one.”
- Multiculturalism “denies integration through assimilation” whilst making the “‘minorities right to be distinct’ absolute.” However, it “does little to balance this with public, behavioral or cultural commitments to the population and society as a whole.”
- Russia is a “type of state civilization where there are no ethnicities, but where ‘belonging’ is determined by a common culture and shared values.” This common culture is reliant upon “preserving the dominance of Russian culture,” which “hostile forces” have tried to break.
- Analysis: Russia’s unity is reliant upon “the absorption by the leader – first his ideas and then presumably in his acts – of all of these other groups. I was about to say national minorities, but that would have been wrong because, in Putin’s mind, and in [Ivan] Ilyn’s mind for that matter, there are no national minorities. Ilyn [a Russian fascist philosopher and source of ideological inspiration for Putin] was very clear that anyone who uses the phrase ‘national minority’ is attacking Russia.” – Snyder
- “Subtle cultural therapy” is recommended for Russia, a “a country where, for many, the civil war never really ended and where the past is highly politicized.”
- The organization of regional parties is a “direct path to separatism.” Those who “attempt to lean towards nationalist, separatist, or other similar forces or influences should be restricted from the electoral process through democratic or court procedures.”
- Russia and Ukraine have “lived together for many centuries. Together [they] were victorious in the most terrible of wars. And [they] will continue to exist side by side. To those who want and try to divide [Russia and Ukraine], I say – in your dreams.”
- Analysis: When Putin discusses Ukrainians in this vision, “he doesn’t mention the existence of the Ukrainian state; that’s irrelevant. All he mentions is that Ukrainians are a kind of fragment scattered across this broad expanse… This fragment will only be made whole insofar and as it is absorbed into this larger Russian civilization.” Putin also elaborates upon this notion of Russia as a whole civilization in a fascist manner. The “contours, the limits of that civilization are defined by the leader himself.” And, If Russia is divided, “it is the fault of others, who must be threatened and deterred.” – Snyder
|
| Putin – “Address by President of the Russian Federation” – Kremlin website (March 18, 2014) |
- Crimea is “an inseparable part of Russia” that reflects Russia and the region’s “shared history and pride.”
- “When Crimea ended up as part of a different country,” Russia realized that “it was not simply robbed, it was plundered.”
- Russians had been deprived of their “historical memory, even of their language and to subject them to forced assimilation.”
- Ukraine has “no legitimate executive authority now, nobody to talk to. Many government agencies have been taken over by the imposters, but they do not have any control in the country,” and they themselves are “often controlled by radicals.”
|
| Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev quoted in a conversation with an industry watchdog official – “Russian Prime Minister: Ukraine Has ‘No Industry, or State” (April 5, 2016) |
- There is “neither industry, nor a state there” in Ukraine. In 2013, there was “industry there, but there was no state even then.”
|
| Russian economist and pundit Mikhail Khazin remarks – “They need to be partially eliminated” – YouTube video (December 27, 2016) |
- Ukraine has “several million people [not loyal to Russia]” who “need to be partially eliminated and partially squeezed out.”
- “New Russia,” or the territories from Kharkov, Odessa, Zaporozhye, and Dnepropetrovsk, “should be joined to the Russian regions, with full denazification, deukrainization.”
- Russia should institute a “complete ban on Ukrainian fonts, Ukrainian texts, programs on [the] Ukrainian language, on teaching Ukrainian – ie completely.”
- These implementations will cause a “surplus population – let the surplus population go to the [Russian] Far East.”
|
| Former Putin aide Vladislav Surkov in Q&A – Surkov: “I’m Interested in Acting Against Reality” – Actual Comments website (February 26, 2020) |
- Surkov’s “vanity is forever satisfied by the fact that [he] put [his] hand and head into the building of a new Russian state.”
- There is “no Ukraine,” although there is “Ukrainianism” – a “specific mental disorder. Surprisingly brought to the extreme degree passion for ethnography. Such bloody lore. Muddle instead of the state. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura. But there is no nation.”
- Donbass “does not deserve such humiliation” of returning to Ukraine. Ukraine “does not deserve such honor.”
|
| Putin – “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” – Kremlin (July 12, 2021) |
- The incorporation of “western Russian lands into the single state” was the product of “common faith, shared cultural traditions, and – I would like to emphasize it once again – language similarity.”
- There is “no historical basis” for the “idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians.”
- Ukrainization was “often imposed on those who did not see themselves as Ukrainians.”
- Modern Ukraine is “entirely the product of the Soviet era” shaped on the “lands of historical Russia.” Hence, Russia “was robbed.”
- Ukraine’s leaders “began to mythologize and rewrite history, edit out everything that united [Russia and Ukraine], and refer to the period when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as an occupation.”
- The “slogans, ideology, and blatant aggressive Russophobia” of “radical nationalist groups” have become “defining elements of state policy in Ukraine.”
- Ukraine “peddle[s] Russophobia” and prefers to “exploit the image of the ‘victim of external aggression.’”
- Russia and Ukraine together have “always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For [they] are one people.”
|
| Medvedev op-ed – “Why Contacts with the Current Ukrainian Leadership are Meaningless” – Kommersant (October 11, 2021) |
- Ukrainian leaders are “people who do not have any stable self-identification. Who are they, what country are they citizens of, what is their historical identity, ethnic component, what gods do they pray to?”
- There are “no fools to fight for Ukraine. And it is pointless for [Russia] to deal with vassals. Business must be done with the suzerain.”
|
| UPDATED Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov – Telegram posts by Kadyrov – Telegram (Feb. 21, 2022 – April 1, 2023) |
- “All of today’s Ukraine at one time did not even dream of those territories that were given to it with one stroke of the pen by the Bolsheviks. Without those broad reckless gestures, she, as a country, would not have represented anything from the beginning… Sooner or later everything returns to its native freedom. So it was with the Crimea. Donetsk and Luhansk did not take root either. I think this is not the limit.” (Feb. 21, 2022)
- “Chechen fighters take an active part in a special operation to cleanse Ukraine from Bandera, nationalists and terrorists.” (March 8, 2022)
- “Very soon, these brave [Russian] warriors will erase this vile, vile phenomenon called “nationalism” from the pages of Ukrainian history.” (March 19, 2022)
- “I do not envy the fate of the Bandera dogs, because their sad fate is already a foregone conclusion by our valiant warriors. My dear brothers… intend to excise this hated Nazi tumor. Very soon, the hands of Chechen fighters will bring final peace and order throughout Ukraine. They intend to personally behead all the shaitans hiding behind thick walls, or, what is even more vile for civilians.” (using the Islamic term “shaitans for devils, or Satan. March 24, 2022)
- “The Kyiv authorities have chosen a path doomed to death. Having once chosen the side of outright Western criminals, the entire Ukronazi trash forever crossed out the possibility of peaceful coexistence in a religious and civilized society.” (March 24, 2022)
- “The Nazis once again demonstrate their true essence, the essence of rodent pests.” (April 2, 2022)
- Russian forces “are conducting cleansing operations from the surviving Bandera rabble, Nazis and shaitans.” (April 13, 2022)
- “With such motivation and fighting spirit, we simply do not have the right to leave a single nationalist and Banderist on Ukraine soil.” (April 26, 2022)
- For eight years, Donbass “was oppressed by non-humans from gangs of Ukraine.” (May 19, 2022)
- “I am convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin made the only right decision, ordering to destroy the American chimera in its very embryo in Ukraine.” (June 26, 2022)
- “This is exactly how the purge of the entire Luhansk People’s Republic took place – competently, quickly and accurately.” (July 10, 2022)
- “Europeans, Ukrainians, wake up! Save your gene pool, not Zelensky’s status.” (July 24, 2022)
- “It cost us a lot of effort to squeeze out of our lands this abomination that has bred at the suggestion of the same West.” (August 3, 2022)
- “Now, even if one bullet flies towards Russia, it is necessary not only to hit the decision-making centers, but to wipe them off the face of the earth so that there is no wet place left from this fascist-Bandera junta. I think so – the fish rots from the head, so you have to start from the top.” (Oct. 19, 2022)
- “We will do our best to ensure that these dogs of hell get what they deserve, and those who somehow managed to escape punishment are doomed to live the rest of their miserable life, turning around anxiously. They don’t deserve any rights or accepted norms.” (Nov. 19, 2022)
- “The result of the special operation for us is the complete destruction of the manifestations of Satanism: shaitans, Bandera, Nazis. There are many definitions for them, but the essence is always the same. Their true essence is the lack of humanity, moral principles, the spread of evil spirits. Therefore, for us they are Satanists.” (Nov. 26, 2022)
- “Our ancestors fought for religion, for the right to pray, to build mosques, to adhere to their spiritual and moral values … Today, in the zone of the special military operation, our brothers are defending this right, defending the Motherland from the satanic invasion, which wants to instill destructive ideas and values that are alien to us and destructive.” (Feb. 17, 2023)
- “Today, Russia alone is fighting not only the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. Under the guise of Ukraine and its gene pool, the entire NATO block, the European Union is fighting against us, supplying weapons, ammunition, equipment, and mercenaries.” (March 13, 2023)
- “I will not confine myself to a dry condemnation of the act of the Ukrainian evil spirits, which recently burned the pages of the Holy Quran … For the elimination of this scum, I announce a reward of 5 million rubles.” (March 17, 2023)
|
| Putin declaring Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine – “Putin Orders ‘Special Military Operation’ for Ukraine” – Bloomberg News (February 24, 2022) |
- The special military operation’s goal is “the protection of people who during eight years, suffer from abuse and genocide from the Kyiv regime.”
- Whoever tries to stop Russia and “further create threats to [Russia’s] country, to [the Russian] people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and lead [them] to such consequences that [they] have never faced in [their] history.”
|
| Head of the Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutsky – Telegram posts by Slutsky – Telegram (Feb. 24, 2022 – Jan. 23, 2023) |
- “Considering that Washington and Brussels have rejected Russian proposals on global security issues, and Kiev has been refusing to implement the Minsk agreements for 8 years, the demilitarization of Ukraine is the only way left… [Russia and Ukraine] is one people. Think about [their] shared history. [They] have common victories. One culture, one faith.” (Feb. 24, 2022)
- “Today in Ukraine there is not only a special operation of the RF Armed Forces for liberation from neo-Nazism. In fact, this is the culmination of a fierce civilizational battle unleashed not by us. But the price of victory in it now is salvation from the destruction of the entire Russian world.” (May 7, 2022)
- “All of this once again demonstrates that Russia’s special operation in Ukraine must be brought to an end. This is a question of the survival of the Russian world and Russian civilization.” (July 17, 2022)
- “The decision to conduct the SVO was the only correct one. Russia is saving the Donbass from the genocide and terror of the Nazi regime, which is far from being controlled in Kyiv… Holding referendums on joining Russia in the LPR and DPR, as well as in the liberated territories of the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, all subsequent steps (we have no doubt what they will be), the decree on partial mobilization is the way to preserve our common fatherland.” (Sept. 21, 2022)
- “This is the harsh truth. Until the last Ukrainian, so until the last Ukrainian.” (Sept. 30, 2022)
- “These are the non-humans that the Ukrainian Maidan spawned. Religion in Ukraine is replaced by them with false faith and sectarianism, and the junta itself is first replaced by them.” (Dec. 12, 2022)
- “The fate of the Zelensky junta, no matter how Western magazines give him the title of man of the year, is no more enviable than the fate of ordinary traitors. The sale of national interests and the extermination of their people in the war of the West against Russia to the ‘last Ukrainian’ may very well end up with a ‘Not Found’ answer to a search query about Ukraine in the future.” (Dec. 26, 2022)
- “The Kyiv regime finally seems to have lost the last remnants of sanity. But what is wrong with European capitals? Are you ready to be erased too?” (Jan. 23, 2023)
|
| Russian victory declaration, accidentally published – “The Offensive of Russia and the New World” – RIA Novosti (February 26, 2022, since deleted) |
- “There will be no more Ukraine as anti-Russia.”
- Vladimir Putin has asserted a “historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations.”
- Ukraine’s return to Russia will not mean its statehood’s “liquidation”; instead, Ukraine will be “reorganized, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world.”
- Analysis: This victory declaration “made it clear that Russia’s aim in this war was to destroy the Ukrainian state, destroy the Ukrainian nation, and then leave the remaining populace as a kind of unformed mass that could be colonized in any way the Russian leadership desired.” – Snyder
- This war is a “response to the geopolitical expansion of the Atlanticists, this is Russia’s return of its historical space and its place in the world.”
|
| UPDATED Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin – Telegram posts by Volodin – Telegram (March 15, 2022 – Feb. 19, 2023) |
- “In the end, everyone should come to the realization that we have one country, and we are obliged to defend it. And there shouldn’t be another!” (March 15, 2022)
- “Ukraine has lost its sovereignty and is on the verge of self-disintegration.” (July 21, 2022)
- “If the attacks by the Kyiv regime continue, the response will be even tougher. All organizers and perpetrators of terrorist attacks must be found. Those who resist are destroyed.” (Oct. 13, 2022)
- Ukraine “began to destroy their native culture, which cannot be divided into Russian and Ukrainian – it, like faith, we have in common.” (Feb. 19, 2023)
|
| UPDATED Medvedev – Telegram posts by Medvedev – Telegram (March 17, 2022 – May 3, 2023) |
- Russia fights for a “world order” in which there is “no place for frostbitten Nazis, historical lies and genocide [against the Russian people].” (March 17, 2022)
- Negotiations with Ukraine aim to “fix the neutral status of Ukraine, its demilitarization, the rejection of the use of Nazi ideological laws that were adopted in this country. Well, and a number of positions that the Russian Federation considers to be most important.” (March 26, 2022)
- “Deep Ukrainianism” is a fictional concept “fueled by anti-Russian poison and an all-consuming lie about its identity, is one big fake. This phenomenon has never happened in history. And it doesn’t exist now.” (April 5, 2022)
- Ukraine will “suffer its own fate” after having “mentally transformed into the Third Reich, having written down the names of Jews and Nazi henchmen into history books. This is its path, of such Ukraine.” (April 5, 2022)
- Russia’s “most important goal” is to “change the bloody and full of false myths consciousness of a part of today’s Ukrainians.” (April 5, 2022)
- “History will put everything in its place and show which side the truth is on. Who became the custodian of true Christian values, protecting them from atheists, bandits, and nationalists.” (April 27, 2022)
- “Zelensky has no other way to stay in office. If, of course, the position itself remains.” (May 3, 2022)
- “I am often asked why my Telegram posts are so harsh. The answer is I hate them. They are bastards and geeks. They want death for us, Russia. And as long as I’m alive, I will do everything to make them disappear.” (June 7, 2022)
- “I saw a message that Ukraine, under Lend-Lease, wants to receive SPG-9 from its overseas owners with payment for delivery in 2 years. Otherwise, next winter it will simply freeze. Just a question. And who said that in two years Ukraine will even exist on the world map?” (June 15, 2022)
- Putin’s special military operation aims to “protect the citizens of Donbass and to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. Everything is clear here, and they will be achieved.” (July 9, 2022)
- “As a result of Western involvement, “Ukraine may lose the remnants of state sovereignty and disappear from the world map” and “Ukrainian criminals will definitely be tried for the atrocities committed against the people of Ukraine and Russia (July 21, 2022)
- “The Ukrainian state in its current configuration with the Nazi political regime will pose a constant, direct and clear threat to Russia. Therefore, in addition to protecting our people and protecting the borders of the country, the goal of our future actions, in my opinion, should be the complete dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine.” (Oct. 10, 2022)
- “Here, various cockroaches that have bred in the Kiev insectarium constantly threaten to ‘return the Crimea.’ Well, the goals are clear: to cheer up the tame insects around and show the owner of the insectarium that they are still very capable of running cockroaches for a piece of food. Almost like a cockroach – favorite Janissaries in the play of the famous Kyivian Mikhail Bulgakov ‘Running.’ Therefore, I want to remind them of indisputable facts:
- “Kiev is the capital of Ancient Russia.
- “Kyiv is a large Little Russian city within the Russian Empire.
- “Kyiv is the republican capital of the USSR.
- “And finally, Kyiv is just a Russian city where people always thought and spoke Russian. To make everything very clear what and how to return…” (Nov. 20, 2022)
- “Pseudo-Ukrainian rabid mongrels with Russian surnames, choking on their toxic saliva, declare that their enemy is located within the borders of Russia, from the West to Vladivostok. Rabies has no cure.” (Dec. 11, 2022)
- “The termination of life, or death, of the former state will be accompanied by insane laughter, indecent antics and vile clown antics of the Nazi gang, completely crazy from the abundance of blood and drugs. And the deathly silence of Western doctors, looking with cold contempt at the agony of their own tortured patient…” (Feb. 3, 2023)
- “It is so important to achieve all the goals of a special military operation. Push the borders of threats to our country as far as possible, even if these are the borders of Poland. Destroy neo-Nazism to the ground. In order not to waste time later on catching the remnants of Bandera gangs in the Little Russian forests. So that the world will find long-awaited peace.” (Feb. 24, 2023)
- “Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that Ukraine is financially a non-existent country. As soon as funding from the US and Europe ends, the war will end. Well done, boldly and accurately for a European politician. One can only add that as soon as Western funding ends, Ukraine itself will end. She doesn’t need anyone.” (April 14, 2023)
- “The Kyiv dog continues to bark. Saliva flows down the hairy muzzle so that the owners see his fighting qualities… Do not underestimate even delusional performances. It is also a hysterical manifesto of the Kiev regime in order to consolidate the Nazi elite, maintain the morale of the troops and receive new support from their sponsors. And the answer to it can only be this:
- Massive destruction of personnel and military equipment used by the Nazi regime during the counteroffensive, with the infliction of the maximum military defeat of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
- The complete defeat of the enemy and the final overthrow of the Nazi regime in Kiev with its complete demilitarization throughout the Ukraine.
- The implementation of acts of retribution against key figures of the Nazi regime, regardless of their location and without statute of limitations.” (April 29, 2023)
- “Our main task is … to inflict a devastating defeat on all enemies – the Ukronazis, the United States, their minions in NATO, including vile Poland, and other Western nits. We must finally return our lands.” (May 1, 2023)
- “After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left except for the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal. It is not even needed to sign the act of unconditional surrender. Hitler, as you know, did not sign it either.” (May 3, 2023)
|
| UPDATED Russian head of occupation authority in Crimea Sergey Aksyonov – Telegram posts by Aksyonov – Telegram (March 29, 2022 – Feb. 18, 2023) |
- “Everything that is connected with the common history, culture, spirituality of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, acts on the demon-possessed Bandera people like incense on devils. Our army liberates the Ukrainian land from evil spirits. The idol of Bandera will be destroyed, and the world will become cleaner and freer.” (March 29, 2022)
- “Does anyone still have doubts that Russia is freeing the Ukrainian people from absolute evil? It was grown in the ideological laboratories of Western intelligence services, pumped up with hatred and armed to the teeth, its goal is the destruction of our common values, everything that is dear to us. Therefore, only demilitarization, denazification and the trial of Nazi criminals. Therefore – only victory!” (March 30, 2022)
- “It is necessary to destroy the Nazi reptile in its Kiev nest. We must go to the end. Like in `45.” (April 14, 2022)
- “We understand that in the person of this regime we are dealing not only with an anti-Russian, but also with an anti-Christian force. In other words, with Satanists. Nazism, paganism, the occult and Satanism have always gone hand in hand – this was the case in the Third Reich, this is happening today in Ukraine… After liberation, Ukraine will need not only denazification, but also serious spiritual ‘treatment.’ Not only a new Nuremberg, but also, figuratively speaking, baptism in the waters of the Dnieper.” (April 18, 2022)
- “Those war criminals who survive the process of demilitarization and denazification must be tried and executed publicly. How our grandfathers and great-grandfathers executed the Bandera bastard.” (April 22, 2022)
- The “Ukrainian Nazis” face two outcomes: “crawling on their knees into captivity and then under the tribunal or into hell. There are no other scenarios for them and cannot be.” (April 26, 2022)
- “The Ukrainian government is confidently leading the country along the path of Nazi Germany, to spiritual, cultural and political suicide. Russian classics, which make up a significant part of world culture, are being sacrificed to bestial Russophobia. The nature of this hatred is understandable: the very existence of the Russian world and everything connected with it is death for Ukrainian Nazism, the virus of which was grown in Western ideological laboratories and artificially brought to the historical lands of Russia … I am sure that after the defeat of Nazism, Russian classics will return to Ukrainian soil. This will become an important tool for denazification of the country. Russian culture and Nazism are incompatible.” (April 27, 2022)
- Those captured Nazis who will not be shot by the verdict of the tribunal should be sent to the most black and hard work to restore the cities of Donbass they destroyed. There will be places for them in the Crimean colony. Here they will find a ‘warm’ welcome, lessons in the Russian language and anti-fascism, which they will remember for the rest of their lives.” (May 20, 2022)
- “It is difficult to argue with the obvious fact that Ukraine has adopted the methods of ISIS (the organization is banned in the Russian federation)… [Russia] will give a worthy and fair response to the terrorist state of Ukraine, will protect its people and fraternal peoples.” (June 29, 2022)
- “Ukraine has already committed so many terrorist attacks, so many crimes against humanity that it has lost all right to its statehood. Ukrainian statehood has become an idol to which bloody sacrifices are constantly made. This idol must be destroyed. The sooner Ukraine in its current form disappears from the political map of the world, the better it will be for the peoples of this country, which the Kyiv regime mercilessly throws into the meat grinder of war, and for the entire world community, for which the Ukrainian state has become a source of endless problems and tension.” (July 12, 2022)
- The Ukrainian regime “is not just Nazi and anti-Russian, it is anti-human. Ukrainian statehood is Moloch [a pagan deity], to whom children are sacrificed. This filthy idol must be destroyed, it has no place in history.” (July 27, 2022)
- “The forces that seized the Mother of Russian cities and other lands of historical Russia are anti-Russian, anti-Christian, anti-human.” (July 28, 2022)
- “The Russian world is returning to its natural borders. I am sure that this process will continue. Our glorious ancestors for centuries mastered, developed and defended these lands not for the bastards who do not remember their relationship, the followers of the sect of Nazis and traitors, to ‘panow’ on them.” (Aug. 8, 2022)
- “The future of Ukraine, or rather what remains of it, is possible only with the complete elimination of Ukrainian statehood. We must work to ensure that a new enemy does not grow up near us, in a more serious guise.” (Sept. 1, 2022)
- “Unfortunately, the ideology of state terrorism is shared by at least part of Ukrainian society. This is evidenced by the outbursts of demonic joy on the Internet about every terrorist attack staged by the Kyiv regime. This is a disease of public consciousness, which will also have to be treated during the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. Everyone should know that the end of terrorists is always the same – dog death and eternal damnation. So it was, is and will be.” (Sept. 3, 2022)
- “Ukraine is a terrorist state. There can only be one end for terrorists. Proven by history.” (Sept. 16, 2022)
- “It is not the Russian language that will disappear, but Ukraine.” (Oct. 21, 2022)
- “Now it’s our turn to burn out the Nazi plague with a red-hot iron. And the best guarantee that it will never again crawl out of its rotten catches and will not again strike minds and souls is the liquidation of Ukrainian statehood, which gave birth to Nazism. This will be a new day of liberation for the millions of people who today are held hostage by a terrorist state.”(Oct. 28, 2022)
- “Those who occupy Odessa and other Russian cities are of no historical value. The Empress will definitely return to her rightful place, and Bandera’s garbage will be thrown to the dustbin of history.” (Nov. 8, 2022)
- “Perhaps the West believes that [Hitler] managed to breed a special ‘breed’ of the Nazis, intended exclusively for ‘hunting’ for Russia and Russians – as breeds of dogs are bred. No one remembers that in fact one of the main ‘generic signs’ of the failed Ukrainian statehood in the nineteenth-twentieth, and in the forties of the last century was anti-Semitism… Only the elimination of the Kyiv junta and the dismantling of Ukrainian statehood, impregnated with Nazism, are a reliable guarantee of peace and security for all peoples.” (Nov. 8/9, 2022)
- “We are fed up with ‘square’ disgusting to the throat. And no amount of weapons will help the Kyiv regime to once again get into the Crimea with its snout and put its pig’s hooves on our table. There can be only one result of such attempts: the loss of new territories by the former Ukraine in addition to those already lost and the appearance of thousands of new graves in Ukrainian cemeteries. (Jan. 19, 2023)
- “The failed Ukrainian statehood is based not only on the ideological code of Russophobia, which the West uses today, but also on the code of anti-Semitism.” (Jan. 26/27, 2023)
- (Referring to the Berkut police forces who died in 2014) “The Berkut fighters stood in the way of the possessed Maidan crowd, the Nazi scumbags rushing to power, and to the end they fulfilled their duty – official and human. Unlike the corrupt and cowardly Ukrainian authorities, which betrayed everyone who defended the law and the constitutional order, who else could prevent the impending catastrophe, crushing the fascist reptile in the bud. Today it has turned into a monster that our soldiers are fighting in the NWO zone. There is no doubt that the Nazi monster will be destroyed. This is our common duty to our ancestors and defendants, to all those who died in the fight against Nazism.” (Feb. 18, 2023)
|
| Pro-Putin pundit Timofei Sergeitsev op-ed – “What Should Russia Do with Ukraine?” – RIA Novosti (April 5, 2022) (alternative translation by Mariia Kravchenko on Medium) |
- “Nazi, Bandera Ukraine, the enemy of Russia and the West’s tool for the destuction of Russia, we do not need.”
- The “denazification” of Ukraine entails “a set of measures in relation to the nazified mass of the population, which technically cannot be subjected to direct punishment as war criminals.”
- Analysis: Denazification in “official Russian usage just means the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation. A ‘Nazi,’ as [Sergeitsev’s article] explains, is simply a human being who self-identifies as Ukrainian. According to [him], the establishment of a Ukrainian state thirty years ago was the ‘nazification of Ukraine.’ Indeed ‘any attempt to build such state’ has to be a ‘Nazi’ act.” – Snyder
- There is “no significant distinction between the APU [Armed Forces of Ukraine] and the so-called national battalions, as well as the territorial defense that joined these two types of military formations. All of them are equally involved in extreme cruelty against the civilian population, equally guilty of the genocide of the Russian people, do not comply with the laws and customs of war. War criminals and active Nazis should be exemplarily and exponentially punished.”
- In addition to Ukrainian defense forces, “a significant part of the masses, which are passive Nazis, accomplices of Nazism, are also guilty. They supported and indulged Nazi power.”
- These masses can be denazified through “re-education, which is achieved by ideological repression (suppression) of Nazi attitudes and strict censorship: not only in the political sphere, bit also necessarily in the sphere of culture and education.”
- “The terms of denazification can in no way be less than one generation, which must be born, grow up and reach maturity under the conditions of denazification.”
- Denazification will coincide with “de-Ukrainization – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia and New Russia, begun by the Soviet authorities.”
- Analysis: “As a historian of mass killing, I am hard pressed to think of many examples where states explicitly advertise the genocidal character of their own actions right at the moment those actions become public knowledge. From a legal perspective, the existence of sucha text (in the larger context of similar statements and Vladimir Putin’s repeated denial that Ukraine exists) makes the charge of genocide far easier to make. Legally, genocide means both actions that destroy a group in whole or in part, combined with some intention to do so. Russia has done the deed and confessed to the intention.” – Snyder
- Analysis: History reveals that we “should take dictators at their word. Those who incite genocide usually attempt to follow through. It is not unusual for them to publicize their campaigns through propagandists and media. Adolf Hitler had Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg and others doing this work. Putin has Medvedev and the pundits of Russian state media. Finally, the more that Russian soldiers embrace the campaign of ‘de-Ukrainization,’ the more brutal the war will become – and the harder it will be for Russia to find an exit short of total victory or defeat. Russian society’s complacency becomes complicity in murder.” – Hirsch
- Ukraine is historically “impossible as a nation state, and attempts to ‘build’ one naturally lead to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construction that does not have its own civilizational content, a subordinate element of an alien and alien civilization.”
- Analysis: This article is different from other Russian news sources for “two critical reasons. It was published amid Russia’s predatory war of aggression – while atrocities were being committed in Bucha, Mariupol and other towns, and while Ukrainian civilians were being kidnapped, deported and sent to filtration camps. It was being published during extreme wartime censorship in Russia, indicating its approval by the Russian authorities.” – Hirsch
- Politically, the “Bandera elite must be eliminated [as] its re-education is impossible.” Ukraine itself requires “cleans[ing] of Nazi elements… integrating this statehood into close cooperation with the Russian department for the denazification of Ukraine.” Russia will then create a “tribunal for crimes against humanity in the former Ukraine [and] in this regard act as the guardian of the Nuremberg Trials.”
- Initial steps of denazification, according to Sergeitsev, can be defined as follows:
- “Liquidation of armed Nazi formations, as well as the military, informational, educational infrastructure that ensures their activity;
- Installation of the Russian information space;
- The withdrawal of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programs at all levels containing Nazi ideological guidelines; and
- Lustration, publication of the names of the accomplices of the Nazi regime, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (from among those who will not be subject to the death penalty or imprisonment).”
|
| UPDATED Vladimir Solovyov, pro-Kremlin presenter – Russian State TV Excerpts (April 7, 2022 – April 4, 2023) |
- “Vladimir Volfovich [former member of the State Duma] made a genuine forecast. And it sounded like this: Zelensky is the last president of Ukraine because after him there will not be any Ukraine!” (April 7, 2022, translated by media monitor Francis Scarr)
- “The troops of LPR and DPR are fighting for their land, and now I have a question: What would the Ukrainian territorial defense fight for? None of it is their land… We’re telling people: come to your senses! Remember who you are! Look at what’s been done to you! Look who conquered you! Remember your great past! Wake up, stop lying to yourselves! And that is the main point. Why are they making up a language for you? You are Rusyns [Slavic people] – do you need that language that Zelenskyy is trying to speak. Look at the history that is being made up for you, the religion that is being made up for you. That’s why people are for us. Westerners say, ‘Why don’t they greet you with flowers’? Yes, they are, big time. Despite their fear, they’re welcoming us, and they will welcome us even more when they understand that we’re never leaving.” (May 24, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “Putin talks about reinforcing and enlargement, because returning means enlargement. What we lost before, now we need to take back… Who is going to be next? Eastern Europe is next, but they don’t want that. Who is the first to get flushed? Poland is the closest to Ukraine. The Baltics are the closest to the borders of the former USSR. That’s why they’re screaming the loudest.” (June 10, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- Solovyov likens the Russia-Ukraine crisis to “deworming a cat. For the doctor, it’s a special operation. For the worms – it’s a war, and for the cat, it’s a cleansing.” (July 19, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “Don’t rush to buy maps for the new school year. It would be simply pointless.” (Aug. 5, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “If we’d taken Kharkiv, it’s obvious that their main logistics and supply centre is there! Wipe it off the face of the fucking earth if we have to! Warn the civilians, tell them ‘You’ve got 24, 48 hours!’ After that we begin to destroy the city block by block.” (Oct. 25, 2022, translated by media monitor Francis Scarr)
- “What’s happening in Ukraine won’t stay in Ukraine. A holy war is underway. We’re fighting for the right of mankind to live in its original state, as designed by the Creator. Those [Ukrainian] fools who are trying to fight – they aren’t fighting against us, they’re at war with God. In case of their victory, their end is certain. When I say that either we win, or the whole world will be reduced to ashes, this also has another meaning. How can humanity that fights against God continue to exist? … If you think about what’s happening, it’s Satanism. They’re purely demonic, you can’t put it any other way. We have to understand: games are over since we’re dealing with servants of the Prince of Darkness, since we’re dealing with a diabolical origin, what kind of negotiations could there be? Who are we talking to? What kind of negotiations could you have with Satan?” … The new Sodom and Gomorrah await the Lord’s judgment.” (Dec. 17, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “Let’s destroy the city of Kyiv, to hell with it. Its government district, the Duma where they all sit… Wipe it off the face of the earth. Kyiv’s government district should not exist. It should be destroyed, as well as in Kharkiv, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv. This is it, jokes are over. You can fight the unclean only with a holy fire falling from the skies, fire and brimstone, like Sodom and Gomorrah… The Lord has chosen us as the weapon of his judgment.” (April 4, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
|
| Russian State TV Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and other pro-Putin figures or officials – “Ominous rhetoric gains ground in Russia as its forces founder in Ukraine” – Washington Post (April 13, 2022) |
- “On state television, a military analyst doubled down on Russia’s need to win and called for concentration camps for Ukrainians opposed to the invasion. Two days later, the head of the defense committee in the lower house of parliament said it would take 30 to 40 years to ‘reeducate’ Ukrainians.”
- The editor-in-chief of the television news network RT described “Ukrainians’ determination to defend their country as ‘collective insanity.’ ‘It’s no accident that we call them Nazis,’ said Margarita Simonyan, who also heads the Kremlin-backed media group that operates the Sputnik and RIA Novosti news agencies. ‘What makes you a Nazi is your bestial nature, your bestial hatred and your bestial willingness to tear out the eyes of children on the basis of nationality.’”
- “In late March, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a probe into whether Ukrainian students’ textbooks ‘target Children with hatred of Russia and the Russian language’ and ‘distort history.’”
|
| Mentions of Kyiv and Ukraine are removed from the textbooks of the Prosveshcheniye publishing house – Mediazona (April 23, 2022) |
- An anonymous employee for the Russian Prosveshcheniye (Enlightenment) educational publishing house says that they are “faced with the task of making it as if Ukraine simply does not exist… It’s much worse when the textbook just doesn’t mention a country. A person grows up without a knowledge base about some country, and then it is much easier for him to believe what he is told about it from TV.”
- The publishing house can “mention how [Russia] saved Kyiv, but it is no longer possible to talk about any independence of Ukraine as a country.”
|
| Karen Shakhnazarov, pundit and filmmaker – “‘There will be no mercy’ Putin mouthpiece warns of ‘concentration camps, sterilisation’” – excerpts from Russian State TV channel Rossiya 1 via Express (May 4, 2022, via May 5, 2022 article) |
- Opponents of “Letter Z” must “‘understand that if they are counting on mercy, no, there will be no mercy for them. It all became very serious. In this case it means concentration camps, re-education, sterilization.’”
|
| Russian political scientist Sergey Mikheev – Russian State TV Channel 1 – translated by Francis Scarr of BBC Monitoring (May 8, 2022) |
- “Ukraine is in thrall to a Nazi-inspired ‘neo-pagan’ religion based on violence.”
- “The ‘bloody paganism’ was founded by Ukrainian ‘accomplices of the Nazis’ during WWII and later cultivated by the diaspora in the US.”
|
| Journalist Victoria Nikiforova op-ed – “It’s Time to Repeat” – RIA Novosti (May 9, 2022) |
- “Fighting is underway in eastern Ukraine. The Nazis torture and kill the inhabitants of the occupied territories.”
- Russia is defined by “social harmony – difficult to achieve, but absolutely real”
- The Ukrainian special operation has become Russia’s “war for peace. And not only in Russia, but also for world peace.”
|
| Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry’s official spokeswoman – Telegram posts by Zakharova – Telegram (June 3, 2022 – Dec. 29, 2022) |
- The Minsk agreements signed by Russia and Ukraine before 2022 in negotiations to end the war in the Donbas were “a chance for Kyiv to preserve the Ukrainian state. Zelensky, led by Westerners, publicly refused [Putin]. The Kyiv regime will not get a second such chance.” (June 3, 2022)
- The Russian military is “fighting Nazism, neo-Nazism now, freeing Ukraine from the neo-Nazi dominance that has been fed there in recent decades by ‘Western partners.’” (June 22, 2022)
- The policy of forced Ukrainization and persecution of everything Russian continues.” (June 22, 2022)
- “Zelensky called Ukraine the only legitimate heir to Kievan Rus. Prince Volodymyr, then mind not being offended that part of Ukraine will be called Rus. I said it myself, well done.” (July 28, 2022)
- “All that is left to the Kyiv regime, whose characteristic features have long been venality, anger, immorality, dementia and demonic possession. They go to the bottom, proudly raising their middle finger, which has become their shameful symbol.” (Nov. 24, 2022)
- “The history of these places, like the whole history of Ukraine, is inseparable from the Russian one, and any attempts of the Kiev regime to rewrite it are doomed to failure.” (Dec. 29, 2022)
|
| Alexander Egortsev, Special Correspondent of the Spas TV Channel, which is aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church and had more than 1 million subscribers before being blocked by YouTube and moving its account to the Russian version, RuTube – Goat muzzle. Satanism and the occult have become the ideology of the Ukrainian national battalions – RIA Novosti (June 3, 2022) |
- Alexander Sergeevich Khodakovsky, the commander of the Russian Vostok battalion, likens this [falsely alleged] behavior to the “occultism” that was “very strongly developed in Nazi Germany. And here we see worthy heirs. What they are doing is not compatible with the Christian faith and Orthodoxy. This is savagery…”
- Archpriest Alexander Novopashin believes that the “essence of turning to Satanism is a rejection of Christianity and an attempt to resort to the help of supernatural forces to solve their problems – natural deities, energies or entities that allegedly help to gain power. Someone calls these dark forces Satan or the devil, someone talks about the Slavic gods, for example, Perun, Wotan, Odin, etc. Now there is little doubt who exported, fed and encouraged Nazism in the modern history of Ukraine.”
|
| Dmitry Rogozin (Director General of Russia’s Roskosmos State Space Agency, former Deputy Prime Minister) – comments on his Twitter feed and Telegram channel (June 13, 2022 – June 27, 2022) |
- “In general, what has grown up in the place of Ukraine is an existential threat to the Russian people, Russian history, Russian language and Russian civilization. If we do not put an end to them, as, unfortunately, our grandfathers did not do away with them, we will have to die, but end up at an even greater cost to our grandchildren. So let’s get this over with. Once and forever. For our grandchildren.”
|
| Rogozin – Telegram posts by Rogozin – Telegram (June 26, 2022 – 27, 2022) |
- The modern state of Ukraine is “a bastard formation of the Belovezhskaya conspiracy, where the Ukrainian party nomenclature gnawed off the ‘clothes of independence’ along with the Crimea, three military districts and the industrial Donbass. Moreover, the Ukrainian elites suppressed the Russian movement and Russian culture with fear and blood, deprived the indigenous Russian population in Ukraine of the right to speak their native language…Ukrainian elites are traitors…There is no forgiveness for traitors and betrayal!” (June 26, 2022)
- The Kaliningrad and Baltic territories are “[Russia’s] land. And no revanchist and illiterate geeks can call this into question. We will defend our native land. Woe and cruel death to those who try to unleash aggression against Russia.” (June 27, 2022)
|
| Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian administration in occupied Kherson, Ukraine – Telegram posts by Stremousov – Telegram (June 29, 2022 – Oct. 21, 2022) |
- Kherson is “going to Russia and in the near future we will regain our Motherland, from which we all come. The Kherson region will never return to the environment of Nazism, debauchery and cynicism.” (June 29, 2022)
- “The army of the Russian Federation, luring mindless Ukronazis into fire bags, continues to cleanse the planet of fascism.” (Oct. 15, 2022)
- “The result of this campaign is not the struggle for Ukraine, but the destroyed and ruined destinies of millions of Ukrainians.” (Oct. 21, 2022)
|
| Vasily Fatigarov, Russian military expert – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by Francis Scarr of BBC Monitoring (June 30, 2022) |
- Russia “must carry out a large amount of methodical, competent and carefully considered work to denazify Ukraine…I like this kind of figurative comparison of the fascination of Ukraine with a cancerous tumor. [Russia is] now working like surgeons. And when a surgeon cuts out a cancerous tumor, while he’s cutting it, it’s growing. And when he cleans it up, he also has to clean up a certain amount of healthy tissue so that, God forbid, nothing remains and starts growing again. And that fascist infection is the same! That’s to say, if some of it remains somewhere, it will definitely start growing again. Therefore [Russia] will purify that territory very precisely, very severely, and ensure that that fascist infection doesn’t grow anywhere else.”
|
| Russian political scientist Mikhail Markelov – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (July 13, 2022) |
- Russia should “seriously think about liquidating Nazi leadership of [Ukraine], including not only Zelensky and his circle, but also the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] and the entire government that is currently committing total genocide against its own people.”
- “I will remind you the words of the Russian president, which he uttered on the 24th of February: ‘You wanted decommunization? You’re going to get it.’
- “Initially, we were just planning to liberate only those who live in Donbas and to free Donbas from the yoke of the Nazis, but after the deliveries of Western weapons, if, God forbid, Americans deliver missiles that can travel 300 kilometers, then we simply can’t stop at all.”
|
| UPDATED Simonyan – Russian State TV Excerpts – (July 19, 2022 – April 2, 2023) |
- “Ukraine as it was can’t continue to exist. There’ll be no Ukraine we’ve known for many years.” (July 19, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “[Zelenskyy] is a small Egyptian pharaoh who isn’t letting our people go. Orthodox people, Russian people, he is forcibly holding people before our eyes. He is a small pharaoh and before our very eyes, 10 Egyptian plagues are being inflicted upon him that have befallen pharaoh, according to the Bible… A Grad [rocket launcher] will destroy all the people and animals and the fields with their crops… When Egypt was immersed into darkness for three days, but the Israelis had light in their homes, the Bible says, “Don’t we see darkness over there on a regular basis?” Whenever our missiles are flying, whenever we are practicing our strikes of vengeance, Ukraine is immersed in darkness. And one of the scariest Egyptian plagues is the death of the firstborn. The death of their firstborn is their mobilization of their firstborn, the second, the third, all of their males… What is left of their male population? All that is left is for us to see frogs falling from the sky, if you believe in the Egyptian plagues.” (April 2, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
|
| Head of State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartaolov – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Aug. 1, 2022) |
- Ukraine “has to be restored, rebuilt from scratch, but the biggest problem today is people. There are also children. And children are the very category that was the most mistreated by the Banderite Nazi scumbags, who simply brainwashed them… We need to deal with the children, perhaps in our Suvorov’s, Nakhimov’s cadet schools, there could be additional enrollment and we could send these kiddies there. Maybe Moscow’s higher educational institutions, and others in the country, should reserve additional spots for students who could be placed on a budgetary basis, in free dormitories. Today, they can’t pay anything for their education. Nonetheless, we have to do this because then people will believe that we’re serious, and Russia is here for a long time – forever.”
|
| Russian journalist and military expert Igor Korotchenko – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Aug. 5, 2022) |
- “Ukraine is part of the historical Russia. Ukraine as a country never existed. Ukraine’s political elites made a choice to turn it into the project ‘anti-Russia.’ These kinds of countries have no right to exist from the perspective of our country’s national interests. Neither the West, nor the United States, can influence the will and determination of our country’s leadership and of our people to ensure that this kind of a threat can never exist in our history from the territory of a country currently called Ukraine.”
|
| Soviet-Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov – excerpt from speech on the Ukrainian language – translated by media monitor Maksym Borodin (Aug. 26, 2022) |
- “The Ukrainian language has become the image of Russophobia… That is, the phrases that we hear in Ukrainian transcription and pronunciation, they are for us and for the world in principle and for themselves the formulation of hatred for Russia!”
|
| Russian mercenary Igor Mangushev – speech on the Russia – Ukraine war – translated by journalist Denys Kazanskyi (Aug. 28, 2022) |
- [holding a skull in his hand] “We’re alive, and this guy’s already dead. Let him burn in hell. He wasn’t lucky. We’ll make a goblet out of his skull. We are not at war with people of blood and flesh, we are at war with the idea, with the idea of Ukraine as an anti-Russian state. There can be no peace. We must de-Ukrainize Ukraine. We must return our Russian lands… This is the tragedy of Ukrainian soldiers. We don’t care how many we have to kill them. If we were at war with people, we could make peace with them. But we are at war with the idea, so all bearers of an idea must be killed. Like this guy, probably he did not want to lie near Azovstal.”
|
| Putin – Address by the President of the Russian Federation (Sept. 21, 2022) |
- “We know that the majority of people living in the territories liberated from the neo-Nazis, and these are primarily the historical lands of Novorossiya, do not want to live under the yoke of the neo-Nazi regime.”
- The citizens of Russia can rest assured that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be defended – I repeat – by all the systems available to us.”
|
| Putin – People’s Choice: Together Forever Concert Rally (Sept. 30, 2022) |
- “I cannot help but go back to the time when the Soviet Union was formed, when Russia was creating modern Ukraine. It was Russia that created modern Ukraine, giving it significant swathes of land, historical lands of Russia, along with the people, who no one asked about where and how they want to live, how they see the future of their children, and in which country. The same thing happened when the Soviet Union broke apart.”
- “Only modern Russia has given the residents of the Lugansk People’s Republic, the Donetsk People’s Republic, Zaporozhye and Kherson the right to choose. People came to the referendum and made their choice to be with their historical homeland, Russia.”
|
| Putin – Signing of treaties on accession of Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and Zaporozhye and Kheron regions to Russia (Sept. 30, 2022) |
- “It is an inherent right of the people. It is based on our historical affinity, and it is that right that led generations of our predecessors, those who built and defended Russia for centuries since the period of Ancient Rus, to victory.”
- “There is nothing stronger than the determination of millions of people who, by their culture, religion, traditions, and language, consider themselves part of Russia, whose ancestors lived in a single country for centuries. There is nothing stronger than their determination to return to their true historical homeland.”
|
| Andrey Sidorov, Deputy Dean of world politics at Moscow State University – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Oct. 9, 2022) |
- “We should wait for the right moment and cause a migration crisis in Europe with a new influx of Ukrainians… I think it’s most beneficial to do it in the new year, towards the spring, because the situation will start to worsen by then, in terms of economic and social tensions in Europe. So the situation we’re living through right now should be handled rationally, not emotionally. And the rationale is: Ukraine as a nation should not exist.”
|
| Russia-aligned leader in the Donetsk “People’s Republic” of Ukraine Pavel Gubarev – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Oct. 11, 2022) |
- “These are Russian people, possessed by the devil. We are coming to convince them, not to kill them. But if you don’t want us to change your minds, then we will kill you. We will kill as many of you as we have to. We will kill 1 million, or 5 million; we can exterminate all of you until you understand that you’re possessed and you have to be cured. Zelensky is the main possessed one there, he is really the devil’s spawn. He is the Hitler 2.0 with his rabid nationalism, with that rabid Russophobia, with images of a woman cutting a throat, they are bloody possessed Satanists from the standpoint of the Christian thought. From the secular point of view, these are anti-system liberal consumers, stupid people, who can’t figure out what’s happening.”
|
| UPDATED Member of the Russian State Duma Andrey Gurulyov – Russian State TV Excerpts – (Oct. 19, 2022 – Feb. 23, 2023) |
- “If you have no water, no sewer, we’re projecting the flood of refugees toward Western borders, Correct? Because it’s impossible to survive. There is no heating, no water, no sewer, no lights. You can’t cook food, no place to store food, there is no way to transport the food… How does one live in a country where nothing works?” (Oct. 19, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “We should shut down the topic of Ukraine for good and admit that denazification and demilitarization will shut down Ukraine as a project once and for all. It once existed, but it is no more. There is no Ukraine. This is a territory of Russia. A territory of that Russia that used to be known as the Soviet Union. This is the most important thing to accomplish today.” (Feb. 13, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “If we select a target – for example, it is one city, one region or something else, you clean it out in such a way that there’s nothing left. If we say that it’s Kyiv – they say that Kyiv is the mother of all Russian cities – yes, it is the mother of all Russian cities. But if we need to turn Kyiv into ruins and for our flag to sit there atop those ruins, then this is what we should arrive at.” (Feb. 23, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
|
| UPDATED Anton Krasovsky, then-Director of Broadcasting for RT – Russian State TV Excerpts (Oct. 23, 2022 – April 13, 2023) |
- “[Ukrainian children] should have been drowned in the Tysyna [river], right there, where the duckling swims. Just drown those children, drown them right in Tysyna [river]… Whoever says that Moskals occupied them, you throw them in the river with a strong undercurrent… Over there, every piece of shit little house, there are masses of awful, monstrous little houses, they shit all over the Carpathian Mountains. Carpathian Mountains are disgusting, every hut over there is called ‘smerekova khata.’ Shove them right into those huts and burn them up… [Ukraine] is not supposed to exist at all.” (Oct. 23, 2022, translated by media monitor Julia Davis. Kraskovsky was reportedly suspended after making this statement.)
- [In response to footage of a Russian soldier beheading a Ukrainian soldier] “This really isn’t who we are, this is what war is. War turns brutality into a routine, an everyday occurrence. There is no such thing as a war without cruelty. It has no bounds or boundaries. Is it scary for me to see this footage? Yes, of course. Do I condemn our guys? No, and I never will! The Lord will purge all of this scum, filth and cruelty. But we have to win – at any cost, in order to survive, in order to remain.” (April 12, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
|
| Vladlen Tatarsky, Pro-Kremlin blogger and war correspondent – Interview with Russian State TV host Sergey Mardan – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Oct. 23, 2022) |
- “What are Ukrainians? I suddenly understood it. A Ukrainian is a Russian who got sick. Like a transvestite, he was born a man, then something happened, he had an operation, decided to become a woman and live like one. He puts on a dress, a wig, puts lipstick on, and goes that way all over town. It looks a bit peculiar, you think: is that a man? That’s a man – no, that’s a woman. A Ukrainian is a Russian spiritual transvestite, who is trying to squeeze into another skin. I was always interested: when was this moment when they have shifted from a healthy Russian person, let’s say, a Southern Russian person, and into total schizophrenia. The future of Ukraine, those people who live there, is that they are Russian people and they will return to their normal state.”
- “When we win in Ukraine, the future of these people is that they are Russian people, who recovered from their craziness, their spiritual transvestism, and returned to their normal state.”
- “In order to reset things way back, all of those [Holodomor] monuments have to be destroyed, and all of those cult sites, all monuments erected after 1991 that are related to Ukraine’s independence, or its new and remade history, have to be completely destroyed.”
- Sergey Mardan then says, “It’s impossible to defeat Ukrainianism as an idea if you don’t formulate a counter-idea… [Alexander] Dugin is correct a hundredfold when he says that in order to defeat Ukraine, you have to defeat Ukraine within yourself. That aggressive, fascist, misanthropic ideology of Western liberalism has to be eradicated in its every form. They are countless, they permeate our entire life. We have to eliminate them here. And only then we will win.”
|
| Oleg Karpovich, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Studies at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs – “On the way to real denazification” – Izvestia (Oct. 25, 2022) |
- “The prevention of new bloody crises in Russian-Ukrainian relations will be possible only when it is possible to erase from the minds of Ukrainians the traces of the joint efforts of the collective West and its local collaborators to set the Slav brothers against each other. To do this, firstly, it is necessary to create an attractive alternative, cleansed of the legacy of more than thirty years of occupation, in the new Russian territories – to demonstrate to those residents of Ukraine who have not succumbed to propaganda that a choice in favor of a future freed from toxic ‘Ukrainianism’ is always possible.”
- “The liberation of the Ukrainian people means a comprehensive and effective counteraction to destructive myths, which made it possible to endow the descendants of the Bandera militants with additional arguments in favor of the destruction of the Russian-speaking ‘Untermensch’. We are liberating not only territories, but also minds that have been repeatedly poisoned by the Russophobic authorities of the country.”
|
| Assistant Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Alexey Pavlov — What is cooked in the “witch’s cauldron.” Neo-pagan cults gain strength in Ukraine — Federal AIF (Oct. 26, 2022) |
- “I believe that with the continuation of the special military operation, it becomes more and more urgent to carry out the de-Satanization of Ukraine, or, as the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov aptly put it, its ‘complete de-Satanization.’”
|
| Petr Akopov, Russian propagandist – “A new stage of the dismantling of Ukraine has begun” – RIA Novosti via DISCRED.RU (Nov. 10, 2022) |
- “We need to return Ukraine to its natural state of part of the Russian world.”
- “The entire current Ukrainian elite and the current state of Ukraine are doomed.”
- “We will not allow generations of Ukrainians and South Russian people to continue to be brought up in the denial of their own Russianness and in their hatred for Russia. The current Ukraine is incompatible with Russia – neither with the historical (because it is part of it), nor with the future, because it will be used against us.”
|
| Dmitry Steshin, war correspondent – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Nov. 19, 2022) |
- “These [Ukrainian] people have shaped themselves, their identity on the denial of everything that is Muscovite. This is a horrid deviation, because at its root is their denial of themselves. Therefore, you can’t consider them as people with full-fledged morality and normal mental apparatus. It became clear to me a long time ago, when I came up with the term ‘crypto-Banderites.’ We don’t need to liberate anyone over there. We need to take what’s ours and make it so that they’re afraid to even think about so much as to breathe the wrong way towards Russia… We’ll see what kind of a beautiful life we’ll create for them and how they’ll want to again rethink their identity.”
|
| Boris Chernyshov, State Duma member – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Nov. 19, 2022) |
- “These retaliatory strikes – and they are retaliatory – it’s an expression of our hatred, our holy hatred. They’ll be sitting without gas, without light, and without everything else. If the Kyiv regime chose the path of war criminals, they have to freeze and rot over there.”
|
| Rostislav Ishchenko, political scientist – Interview with Russian State TV host Sergey Mardan – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Nov. 27, 2022) |
- “From my point of view, as long as Ukraine continues to exist in any state, the threat to Russia will also continue to exist. Clearly, Ukraine is not the only one posing a threat, but Ukraine is a direct, constant threat. You can deal with Hungarians, Poles, Americans, Mexicans or anybody else, even with penguins in the Antarctic, but you can’t agree on anything with Russian people who call themselves Ukrainians on the basis of rejecting everything that is Russian. This is an eschatological enemy. Therefore, in my opinion, I don’t know whether or not [Ukraine] will remain… I believe that all efforts should be devoted to make sure that there is not even a memory left of it.”
- TV host Mardan then says, “I believe that this is rational for everyone: for us, for citizens of the former Ukrainian Soviet Republic, and even for the Europeans, if you can believe it. Even the Poles would benefit by Ukraine not existing. It would be much more peaceful for everybody… Right now, the barbarians are on our Western borders. A difficult campaign against barbarians is underway.”
|
| Yuri Kot, pro-government pundit – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Francis Scarr (Jan. 11, 2023) |
- “Such people have taken to the dark side and are proving themselves to be Russophobes, so it’s simply pointless to try talking to them in human terms. They’re enemies, just enemies… The enemy’s children can be re-educated, but the enemy himself must be eliminated!”
|
| Vyacheslav Molotov, State Duma member – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (Jan. 16, 2023) |
- “To a large degree, this is an eschatological conflict. This is not a conflict between Russians and Ukrainians, which is entirely artificial. We are one people. This is a conflict of good versus evil, light versus darkness… War is a cruel thing. At the same time, we’re stronger than [Ukrainians] are because we are humans and over there, they’re mostly the non-humans.”
|
| NEW Anna Dolgareva, Russian propagandist – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor and Advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs (Feb. 16, 2023) |
- Igor Mangushev, captain of the Luhansk People’s Republic, “always said that denazification was possible purely physically. You just have to destroy those who are at war with us and educate their children in the Russian spirit … We just need to destroy those who are at war with us, those who are holding weapons in their hands. After that, the rest can be denazified when they are on Russian territory, in some peripheral federal district.”
|
| NEW Peter Akopov – “Ukrainian dreams will bring Europe to self-destruction” – RIA Novosti (Feb. 16, 2023) |
- “They believe not just in the greatness of their fictitious people (fictionalized because the Little Russian part of the Russian people turned into ‘non-Russian Ukrainians’, and then Russophobes), but in its great mission. The mission of destroying Russia, and not independently, but just together with Europe.”
- “This ‘Ukrainian myth’ is absolutely anti-historical, but it has already firmly settled in the minds of a considerable part of the population of the Nezalezhnaya. Moreover, the most cunning of the manipulators go further and simply call Ukraine the ‘heir of Rus’ and the Ukrainians ‘Real Russians’, thereby canceling both the Russians and Russia.”
|
| NEW Putin – Presidential Address to Federal Assembly (Feb. 21, 2023) |
- The West “started turning Ukraine into an ‘anti-Russia.’ Actually, this project is not new. People who are knowledgeable about history at least to some extent realise that this project dates back to the 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had conceived it for one purpose, that is, to deprive Russia of these historical territories that are now called Ukraine. This is their goal. There is nothing new here; they are repeating everything.”
- “Russophobia and extremely aggressive nationalism formed [Ukraine’s] ideological foundation.”
- “Responsibility for inciting and escalating the Ukraine conflict as well as the sheer number of casualties lies entirely with the Western elites and, of course, today’s Kiev regime, for which the Ukrainian people are, in fact, not its own people.”
|
| NEW College in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia – “Conversations about what matters” – translated by media monitor Julia Davis via Telegram channel @nizhny01 (March 29, 2023) |
- [Referencing an image of a dead pig draped in the Ukrainian flag] “A pig is a well-known, widespread, popular image that symbolizes Ukraine. In order to make it more illustrative, we covered it with the Ukrainian flag. We took this photograph as a visual demonstration to show the fate of the Ukrainian nation as a whole. Just like this pig.”
|
| NEW Russian State TV Host Sergey Mardan – Russian State TV Excerpts (March 28, 2023 – April 2, 2023) |
- “Someone is still worried that God forbid, God forbid, we are yet to decide for ourselves that this formation that appeared on the map in 1991 by the name of the nation of Ukraine isn’t the same khimera that should simply be erased off the map. People who self-identify as patriots of this khimera are degenerates. People who are fighting for it are criminals. Taken separately, every one of them may be normal. For many of them, Russian is their native language. It doesn’t change anything. For Chikatilo [serial killer], Russian was also his native language. Does that make him more acceptable, more normal? Should we be more sympathetic towards him than if he was an American, a German, or the native of Burkina Faso?I don’t understand how this is even relevant. I don’t know which conclusion to draw from this. In one year, all conclusions have already been reached. These are simply animals. They don’t need to be agitated to lose their human form. They have no human form anymore. There is no pity for any of them, not one of them. This is whom the Russian Army is fighting – ghouls. Fighting against the undead who rose from the grave, yes yes yes, just like in the TV series.” (Mar. 28, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
- “Ukraine is doomed. It is an amazing place with an amazing fate, like a sinkhole that leads to hell where history walks in circles. This historical circle is of a small diameter. It’s a ruin that repeats time and time again. Fiery whirlwinds keep rolling through this land, leaving nothing in their wake, practically every 100 years. What Ukraine will come to in either case is ruin. The Ukrainian history has this concept: anarchy, chaos, and horror… Yes, Ukraine is doomed to drink its bitter cup, to drink its endlessly bitter cup to the very bottom. In 1991, millions of people had the misfortune to end up there, for their children and grandchildren to be born there. They were unlucky. This is not the way they had imagined their fate. Well, it happens.”(April 2, 2023, translated by media monitor Julia Davis)
|
| NEW Pavel Astakhov, Former Children’s Rights Commissioner – Russian State TV Excerpts – translated by media monitor Julia Davis (April 4, 2023) |
- “They [Ukrainians] have to be destroyed and that’s it! Because it would be a compromise with the devil… God is not with those who persecute, but with those who are being persecuted. Their current government is not of God. They will put ashes upon their heads.”
|
| NEW Medvedev – Tweets by Medvedev – Twitter (February 4, 2023 – April 8, 2023) |
- “All these foul ACF and MBH-media, nalvany, volkov, ponomaryov, and other clones of khodorkhovsky have turned into ordinary terrorists and killers. They are utterly enjoying the sight of Russian citizens’ blood. They flare their nostrils in excitement, looking at wounded and crippled bodies. They have fervently pledged to darkness and terror, along with the murderers from the Nazi regime in Kiev, native to them. One does not negotiate with terrorists. They are exterminated as rabid dogs, poisonous saliva flowing from their mouths; without unnecessary, pathetic speeches, even if sometimes it takes years to get them. Forgiveness and compassion are not applicable to them. This is what the higher justice is all about.” (tweeted April 4, 2023)
- “WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT…
- There’s a nice perspective ahead: to permanently put the nouveau-Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the decrepit EU’s arthritis-crippled neck. That’ll be the final fall of Europe, once majestic, but robbed off by degeneration.
- Russia doesn’t need Ukraine. A threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy. The new Malorossiya of 1991 is made up of the artificially cut territories, many of which are indigenously Russian, separated by accident in the 20th century. Millions of our compatriots live there, harassed for years by the Nazi Kiev regime. It is them who we defend in our special military operation, relentlessly eradicating the enemy. We don’t need unterukraine. We need Big Great Russia.
- Finally, its own citizens don’t need the Nazi-headed Ukraine. That’s why out of 45 million people there’s only some 20 million remaining. That’s why those who stayed want to leave for any place: the hated Poland, EU, NATO, to be America’s 51nd state. Joining the Antarctic with its penguins will also be fine. As long as it’s quiet, and the food’s good. The ruling junta’s criminal ambitions forced Ukrainians to beg and roam around the countries and continents, searching for a better life. All that is for an obscure European perspective. Or rather, to let the harlequin in a khaki tricot and his band of thievish Nazi clowns to put the money stolen from the West into their offshore accounts. Would ordinary Ukrainians need that?
- Nobody on this planet needs such a Ukraine. That’s why it’ll disappear.” (tweeted April 8, 2023)
|
IMAGE: People react as they gather close to a mass grave in the town of Bucha, just northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on April 3, 2022. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)
