Vladimir Putin, along with other Russian officials and state-controlled media, openly declare their objective: the obliteration of the Ukrainian nation. The machinery of Russian state propaganda promotes a genocidal mindset towards Ukrainians among Russian soldiers today.
In Ukraine’s occupied territories, Russian forces are fulfilling their pledges through a series of atrocities, exemplified by the unearthing of mass graves and torture facilities in liberated cities such as Bucha and Izium.
Euromaidan Press compiled 10 of the most genocidal quotes from Russian officials and propagandists.
- “We will crush this evil like annoying bugs. We will stand as a wall, defending our great homeland, which honors the traditions of its peoples and safeguards their spiritual values,” wrote Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally and the head of Chechnya, on 23 May 2023, on Telegram.
- “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, just like in the TV series,” Russian State TV host Sergey Mardan stated on 28 March 2023.
- “A pig is a well-known, widespread, popular image that symbolizes Ukraine. 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. Just like this pig,” an unidentified lecturer in a Russian military uniform of a college in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, said on 29 March 2023 while displaying a picture of a dead pig covered in the Ukrainian flag, representing Ukraine’s fate.
- “When a veterinarian deworms a cat, it is a routine procedure for the vet, a war for the worms, and a cleansing for the cat,” declared Vladimir Solovyov, one of the most prominent hosts on Russian state TV. He made this statement on July 19, 2022, during the program ‘Evening with Vladimir Solovyov’ on Russia 1 television channel.
- “[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 Russia occupied them, you throw them in the river with a strong undercurrent… Shove them right into those huts and burn them up… [Ukraine] is not supposed to exist at all,” Anton Krasovskyi, former Director of Broadcasting of Russia’s state-funded RT, said on 23 October 2022.
- “The 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,” Soviet-Russian filmmaker and Putin’s mouthpiece Karen Shakhnazarov stated on 4 May 2022.
- “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,” Pavel Gubarev, a Russian politician and a founder of the Russian puppet Donetsk People’s Republic, located in the Russian-occupied territory of Donetsk Oblast, said in October 2023.
- “We need to kill, kill, and kill [Ukrainians],’ as I tell you as a professor…,” Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin, who has a significant influence on Putin, stated in 2014.
- “This [Ukrainian] language should not exist… Neither this [Ukrainian] nation nor this language should exist! Cleanse it all out, cleanse out all of its sources,” Aleksei Didenko, a Russian State Duma member, said on 25 May 2023 at a conference in the State Duma.
- “People often ask me why my Telegram posts are so harsh. The answer: I hate them [Ukrainians]. They are scum and degenerates. They want death for us, for Russia. And as long as I’m alive, I will do everything to make them disappear,” wrote Russian Security Council Deputy Chair Dmitry Medvedev on 7 June 2022, on Telegram.
The Euromaidan Press editorial team could not determine which of these quotes is the worst. What is your opinion?
The Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” Genocide is a collective crime necessitating the involvement and acceptance of a significant number of actors to carry out the task of destroying such a group.
International tribunals have consistently recognized propaganda’s role in genocides and other international crimes. For instance, the Nazi persecution of Jews, ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the Rwandan Tutsi genocide, and violence in Kenya and Ivory Coast all exhibited clear connections between propaganda and subsequent atrocities.
The Russian military’s aggression against Ukraine has resulted in numerous documented war crimes, as confirmed by international organizations, human rights NGOs, and Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office. The International Criminal Court (ICC) initiated an investigation into the situation in Ukraine on 2 March 2022, encompassing potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Furthermore, on 17 March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, on suspicion of a specific war crime: the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories to Russia during the invasion.
Discussions within the international community and legal circles continue regarding the crime of aggression and the need for a dedicated international tribunal to ensure accountability for acts of aggression.
While no international judicial body has yet suspected or charged Russia or its representatives with genocide, the global community is gradually moving in this direction. Some international non-judicial bodies, like the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, as well as parliamentary bodies in some countries, have already recognized Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide.
Inciting genocide stands as a distinct international crime, regardless of the ICC or another international tribunal’s decision to acknowledge genocide in Russia’s actions in Ukraine or not. Russia’s extensive propaganda machinery can directly provoke genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Russia’s leaders and state media must be held accountable for promoting genocide, as their words and communication ignite hatred and violence against Ukrainians.
Read more:
- Four reasons why Ukraine faces existential threat on par with Israel
- How Russian propaganda TV turned enabled genocide in Ukraine
- Russia justifies murder of Ukrainians in its 2022 “genocide handbook”
- Facts why Russia’s war is Ukrainian genocide
- Genocide in Ukraine
- Imperialism, chauvinism, expansionism: Russian soldiers’ graffiti in Ukraine shows it’s not just Putin’s genocidal war
