In Rwanda, radio broadcasters told listeners to “cut down the tall trees”—coded language for killing Tutsis. In Nazi Germany, newspapers depicted Jews as disease-carrying vermin. Today in Russia, state media director Anton Krasovsky openly calls for drowning Ukrainian children in the river and “burning them up” in their homes.
“[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… 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!” Krasovsky declared in 2022.
These weren’t the ravings of an anonymous internet troll but televised statements from a director at Russia’s state media outlet RT, reaching over 93,000 followers through his Telegram channel alone.
In August 2024, a Ukrainian court sentenced Krasovsky in absentia to five years imprisonment—the maximum term in Ukrainian law—for public calls for genocide. It marked Ukraine’s first successful prosecution of a Russian propagandist, though the convicted remains free in Russia. The question now facing Ukrainian and international prosecutors is whether they can achieve what their predecessors accomplished: bringing to justice those who turned words into weapons.
Rwanda proved propaganda can kill—Russia is no different
This weaponization of media draws historical parallels to Rwanda’s Radio Thousand Hills, whose directors were prosecuted for inciting genocide.
“Cut down the tall trees.” During Rwanda’s genocide, these seemingly innocuous words carried deadly weight. It was a code for killing Tutsis, who were typically taller than Hutus.
Today, as Ukraine seeks to prosecute Russian propagandists, this historical case offers crucial lessons about proving genocidal intent in media-driven atrocities.
To qualify as genocidal incitement, statements must explicitly call for physical violence or extermination of a protected group – general expressions of hatred or cultural suppression, such as banning a language, don’t meet this threshold, explains Anna Vyshniakova, a Ukrainian lawyer specializing in international criminal law.
“It must be specifically in the form of a call. It’s not just propaganda, dehumanization, and general negative talk. These must be calls for physical destruction,” Vyshniakova told Euromaidan Press.
This legal distinction is crucial—while Russian media routinely denies Ukraine’s right to exist or demeans its culture, only direct incitement to violence qualifies as genocidal under international law.
Unlike physical crimes, incitement to genocide is a “formal composition” crime—the mere act of making public calls for violence is sufficient for prosecution without proving actual casualties resulted. However, this creates a delicate balance with the principles of free speech in democratic societies.
Russia, however, is not democratic. It has neither freedom of speech nor independent media, and its citizens face decades in prison for even slightly deviating from the government’s position. Another particularly troubling aspect of Russian society is that public figures cannot simply remain neutral – they are required to actively promote state narratives supporting illegal armed aggression against Ukraine or be jailed or flee.
“Propagandists should be viewed differently from journalists. They are part of a massive state machine with a militarized, aggressive policy that Russia has created. Propaganda is very much an auxiliary part of it,” Vyshniakova said.
She stressed that Russian propagandists aren’t journalists but facilitators of armed aggression who operate under complete state control.
The Rwanda case also provides compelling evidence of the media’s lethal power. Harvard economist David Yanagizawa-Drott’s groundbreaking research revealed a direct correlation between radio coverage and genocide participation—areas with clear reception showed significantly higher rates of violence.
This research helped secure 75 convictions out of the 90 at the UN tribunal, with sentences ranging from 30 to 35 years.
The case of radio station owner Félicien Kabuga, however, represents an ongoing challenge in genocide prosecution. Kabuga evaded capture for 26 years before dementia halted his trial in 2023, illustrating the urgency of timely prosecution.
As Russian propagandists continue their deadly broadcasts, the challenge isn’t just securing convictions but preventing their words from enabling future atrocities.
Nazi Germany proved repetition turns lies into “truth”—just like Russia does
“Russians just repeat its propaganda endlessly, for years, years, and years, until in many heads it becomes the truth,” explains Ukrainian hybrid warfare expert Liubov Tsybulska.
She describes how Russian propaganda systematically spreads its core narratives about Ukrainian “fascism,” NATO “aggression,” and alleged persecution of Russian speakers. This strategy of repetition eerily echoes Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine, offering crucial lessons for today’s prosecutors.
When the Nuremberg trials began, genocide wasn’t yet recognized as a distinct crime—it would only be codified in 1951. Yet three landmark cases from this period—Streicher, Dietrich, and Fritzsche—established fundamental precedents for prosecuting propaganda as a crime against humanity.
Julius Streicher’s case proved particularly significant. His newspaper Der Stürmer systematically dehumanized Jews, portraying them as vermin or diseases threatening German society—a chilling parallel to how Russian media now depicts Ukrainians.
“We will crush this evil like annoying bugs,” wrote Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally and the head of Chechnya, in 2023.
The escalation of this rhetoric reached chilling heights when Soviet-Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov openly called for “concentration camps, re-education, sterilization” for those opposing Russia’s invasion in 2022.
“The opponents of letter Z must understand that if they count 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,” Shakhnazarov stated on Russian state television.
These modern examples mirror the Nazi propaganda techniques that became central to the Nuremberg prosecutions. In Streicher’s case, prosecutors presented over fifty documents showing how he consistently advocated for Jewish “root and branch” elimination from German society.
His conviction introduced a crucial legal principle: propaganda doesn’t require direct calls to violence to be criminal unless you need to prove genocidal incitement.
Rather, his writings were found guilty of “infecting the minds” of Germans “with the virus of anti-Semitism,” creating conditions that made persecution possible. This description has since become a frequently cited reference in international law cases involving hate speech.
Otto Dietrich’s case revealed the mechanical workings of a state propaganda machine, drawing attention to those typically working at the backstage of a deadly system. As Press Chief, he controlled over 3,000 publications, reaching over 3 million readers—dwarfing Streicher’s Der Stürmer’s 600,000 circulation.
Through daily press conferences and the Editorial Control Law, he managed an army of editors who had to join the Reich League of the German Press or face punishment. Through this position, Dietrich wielded significant power, operating courts that punished editors who deviated from Nazi ideology through fines, penalties, and removal from their positions.
However, radio broadcaster Hans Fritzsche’s acquittal offered a cautionary tale for modern prosecutors. Despite evidence showing how his daily program “Hans Fritzsche Speaks” promoted Nazi policies, the tribunal found his anti-Semitic statements lacked direct calls for persecution. His role wasn’t deemed influential enough. Critics later pointed to weak interrogation methods by Soviet Prosecutor General Roman Rudenko, who failed to ask sufficiently probing questions.
The parallels between Nazi and Russian propaganda techniques – systematic dehumanization, repetitive messaging, and state control of media – offer both guidance and warnings. While the legal framework has evolved, the fundamental challenge remains: proving how words can become weapons in the machinery of mass violence.
Justice takes time—Nazi hunters proved it, and so will Ukraine
“I don’t give a damn about their tribunal,” declared Russian propagandist Volodymyr Oliinyk on state television. “I don’t believe in tribunals, Uncle Sammy. As an Orthodox Christian, I have only one court—the court of God.” Yet his bravado masks a telling anxiety: Russian propagandists increasingly fear international prosecution for their role in Ukraine’s genocide.
Despite having approximately 400 individuals listed by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and Ministry of Culture as threats to national security, there have been few successful prosecutions of Russian propagandists to date. While several criminal proceedings have been initiated, Krasovsky’s case remains an exception rather than the rule.
While hundreds of propagandists are identified as threats to Ukraine’s security, only six face European sanctions. Social media reveals their luxurious lives—yacht trips across Europe interspersed with organizing propaganda concerts in occupied territories.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian law paradoxically classifies genocide incitement as a non-serious crime, carrying lighter penalties than common theft, reaching up to five years imprisonment maximum, as Krasovsky received in absentia.
Ukrainian and international human rights organizations analyzed over 2,000 video segments from the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. They identified more than 300 instances of hate speech rising to the level of crimes against humanity.
This evidence, submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in June 2024, targeted five key figures in Russia’s propaganda machine: Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselyov, Vladimir Solovyov, Dmitry Medvedev, and Olga Skabeeva.
The path to holding Russian propagandists accountable follows three distinct channels, according to Ukrainian lawyer Anna Vyshniakova.
At the national level, Ukraine’s courts have already begun issuing verdicts, as in the case of Krasovsky. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine has taken on the crucial task of building legal cases through systematic evidence collection that could one day be presented in international courts. At the same time, the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting monitor Russian disinformation in real-time.
Internationally, propagandists can be prosecuted via the ICC, which can initiate investigations based on referrals from states, the UN Security Council, or through communications from non-governmental organizations like the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
FIDH submitted cases against six Russian propagandists for crimes against humanity to the ICC; however, no verdicts have been issued yet.
The ICC also didn’t have a single case for incitement to genocide, leaving Ukraine to rely primarily on its national legal systems. However, in 2023, the court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children.
Technically, 125 ICC member states are obligated to arrest and extradite individuals with active warrants if they enter their territory. However, enforcement is not guaranteed, as seen in Putin’s 2024 visit to Mongolia, an ICC member state, where he faced no arrest due to diplomatic assurances.
A third avenue, universal jurisdiction, theoretically allows any country whose laws recognize propaganda for aggressive war as a crime to prosecute these crimes, though this remains largely untested territory.
However, prosecutors outside conflict zones often struggle with the abstract nature of propaganda crimes, preferring to focus on more traditional offenses like murder or financial crimes. This hesitation has prevented universal jurisdiction from becoming a practical tool against propagandists, though it remains effective for prosecuting war crimes.
Ukrainian legislators are working to reclassify genocide incitement as a grave crime, which would enable the prosecution of foreign perpetrators. But lasting success requires international cooperation. Just as Nazi hunters pursued war criminals for decades after World War II, bringing Russian propagandists to justice demands a sustained, coordinated effort.
The Ukrainian Media and Communication Institute identified key steps for facilitating justice:
- Monitoring Russian information channels for genocidal rhetoric and disinformation
- Raising awareness about propagandist accountability through various forums and conferences
- Conducting analytical materials and research
- Producing educational and training content.
Documentation plays a crucial role in building future cases. The Institute of Mass Information, for example, tracks not just individual statements but entire propaganda patterns, recording when figures like Margarita Simonyan or Dmitry Kiselyov call for Ukraine’s destruction.
Ukrainian lawyer Vyshniakova lamented the scarcity of actual verdicts against propaganda figures, calling it “simply absurd” and arguing that multiple mechanisms must work in concert. She emphasized that sanctions are significant, not just for detention purposes but also to address financial aspects, as many propagandists own property abroad and travel internationally.
AI is now tracking Russian propaganda—100,000 hours and counting
Modern tools like AI also come in handy for tracking and analyzing Russian propaganda, with platforms like War of Words using artificial intelligence to process over 100,000 hours of Russian media video content. The system allows users to discover what Russian political talk shows and news programs have been saying about their countries since 2012, creating a comprehensive and searchable archive.
“Disinformation precedes all wars started by an aggressor country—in Ukraine, Syria, and Georgia—as evidenced by the analysis of information campaigns against each of these countries. Russia is applying the same means of propaganda against some EU and NATO member countries, who may become next on this list,” Volodymyr Borodianskyi, Ukraine’s former minister of culture, youth and sports, told Euromaidan Press.
The Department for Combating Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict at the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine actively uses the War of Words service during pre-trial investigations of Russian criminal offenses.
The system also employs a contextual translation function to convey the emotional coloring of text. For example, if someone on TV uses the word “Pindos” (a derogatory term for Americans), the text translation will include a note explaining that propagandists use this disrespectful name.
The evidence gathered through this tool serves multiple important purposes: supporting criminal cases, strengthening arguments for sanctions, and creating historical records of information crimes.
Russian propagandists are now softening their rhetoric—but not their intent
Anton Krasovsky’s conviction in Ukraine was a symbolic step, but justice remains elusive. Sentenced in absentia and suspended from this job for RT, he continues to live freely in Russia—largely untouched by his role in inciting violence. His case proves that while accountability is possible, enforcement remains the true challenge. And as experts note, propagandists have already adapted, shifting their rhetoric to be less explicitly violent while still reinforcing narratives that justify war and genocide.
Despite some victories—like Russia’s removal from the European press councils alliance—the larger battle against war propaganda is far from won. Unlike incitement to genocide, propaganda for aggressive war lacks clear legal precedent, making prosecution difficult. The Rabat Plan offers a framework for identifying dangerous speech, but without stronger enforcement mechanisms, these legal tools remain largely theoretical.
Meanwhile, social media platforms like YouTube continue to host Russian propaganda, with little incentive to act in the absence of official sanctions. As history has shown, unchecked propaganda does not just distort reality—it paves the way for mass violence. Every delayed prosecution, every ignored lie, allows the groundwork for future atrocities to be laid.
Words do not disappear. They remain as evidence, waiting for the day when those who weaponized them must finally answer for their crimes. Justice demands persistence, and history will judge whether the world acted in time.
Read more:
- Top-10 Russian genocidal quotes about Ukraine
- Ukrainian Intel: Abduction of civilians is evidence that Russia wages genocidal war against Ukraine
- Weapons of terror: 5 shocking patterns of Russian war crimes in Ukraine
