MOSCOW, June 18 Russia will punish for calls to kill Russians, said presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov in an interview published on the telegram channel of journalist Pavel Zarubin.
«This is what our enemies say, we must fight them, Russians cannot be threatened with murder. Russians must be punished for this, and we will do it,» he said.
This is how the Kremlin spokesman commented on the words of the adviser to the head of the office of Vladimir Zelensky, Mikhail Podolyak, who said that Kiev's military plans include «the maximum killing of Russians.»
«Podolyak is not a pioneer in terms of such statements. And the head of the military intelligence, and members of the Security Council of Ukraine have repeatedly spoken about the desire to kill as many Russians as possible. Firstly, of course, I would very much like such statements to be at least somehow appreciated abroad, «Peskov said.
>Parliamentarians in these countries need to understand who they are sending aid to, he stressed.
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«They send aid like this <…> de facto killers. That is, people who declare their intention to kill,” he stressed.
It is not the first time that Ukrainian officials have made such statements. In early May, the head of the country's military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, said in an interview with Yahoo News that the Ukrainian special services «have killed and will continue to kill Russians anywhere in the world until complete victory.» He then acknowledged Kyiv's involvement in the terrorist attacks against prominent Russians, saying that «many have already been fed up.»
Russia responded by circulating a letter to the UN Security Council about these hate speeches. Reacting to Budanov's statements, Stéphane Dujarric, the official representative of the Secretary General of the world organization, called for refraining from rhetoric that «inflames» rather than «pacifies» the situation.
At the same time, Podolyak himself claimed in May that Russia was hated in Ukraine and promised to persecute it anytime, anywhere, get it «legally or physically».