Key Kremlin Propagandist Describes Ukrainians as Nazis With a “Bestial Nature”

US media has cit­ed com­ments by Mar­gari­ta Simonyan, the head of key Russ­ian state media oper­a­tions, call­ing Ukrain­ian resis­tance to the Russ­ian inva­sion “col­lec­tive insan­i­ty” and describ­ing Ukraini­ans as Nazis with a “bes­tial nature:” Accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post report.

April 13,2022 RIGA, Latvia — After a month of fight­ing, the archi­tects of Moscow’s war against Ukraine had to explain to Rus­sians why Kyiv had not fall­en. That’s when the most men­ac­ing rhetoric began. 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. And on a talk show, the edi­tor in chief of the Eng­lish-lan­guage tele­vi­sion news net­work RT described Ukraini­ans’ deter­mi­na­tion to defend their coun­try as “col­lec­tive insan­i­ty.” “It’s no acci­dent 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 teart the eyes of chil­dren on the basis of nationality.

Read the rest here.

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing on Mar­gari­ta Simonyan has included:

• In March, we report­ed that Simonyan’s Tik­Tok account was still acces­si­ble in Europe despite var­i­ous EU bans.

• In Feb­ru­ary, we report­ed that Simonyan, described as RT’s edi­tor-in-chief and “a cen­tral fig­ure” of Russ­ian pro­pa­gan­da, was among those sanc­tioned by the EU in con­nec­tion with the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine.

• In July 2021, we report­ed on claims by Simonyan that she was per­son­al­ly help­ing mul­ti­ple for­eign fam­i­lies hop­ing to relo­cate to Rus­sia to escape that their chil­dren were being taught in their schools.