The Ukrainian Intelligence Chief of the Defense Ministry did not call to kill all Russians. In his interviews, Kyrylo Budanov emphasized that anyone who committed war crimes in Ukraine will be found and liquidated in any part of the world. He never called for killing Russians on national grounds, as the Russian media reported. Such narratives are another Russian propagandist attempt to present Ukraine as a country of flourishing Nazism.
Russian websites (1, 2, 3, 4) and social media are widely spreading information that the Ukrainian Defense Ministry Intelligence Chief, Kyrylo Budanov, encouraged to kill Russians like Hitler used to. This was stated by the Russian politician Volodymyr Dzhabarov.
‘Previously, in an interview for Yahoo News, Budanov said that until Ukraine wins, it will continue killing Russians all over the world. Putin’s press secretary Dmytro Peskov noted that the Russian special services will take appropriate measures against such terrible statements. (…) ‘Budanov’s words about killing Russians reveal what kind of attitude is promoted there. I heard similar statements only from Hitler and his associates who have also encouraged to kill Russians’ Ukraina.ru quotes Dzhabarov as saying.
In reality, these words were taken out of context. Kyrylo Budanov never called for killing all Russians on the basis of their nationality, as Russian propaganda tries to present. Instead, he was talking about war criminals who participated or are currently participating in the war against Ukraine and are committing crimes against Ukrainian citizens.
In his interview with Yahoo News, Budanov noted that the Russian government has been trying to charge him with terrorism since 2016. ‘But I want to begin by saying that the things they call ‘terrorism,’ we call liberation. And this began not because I went mad and started killing people in Moscow. It happened because they invaded our country back in 2014,’ Yahoo News writes.
Responding to a journalist’s question about Ukrainian intelligence being involved in the Daria Dugina’s murder, the daughter of the far-right Russian theoretician Oleksandr Dugin, Budanov said: ‘Don’t continue with that topic. All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.’ However, from the context of this interview and from Kyrylo Budanov’s previous comments, it is obvious that he is not referring to Russians as a nationality, but rather those who are involved in the war in Ukraine and commit war crimes against Ukrainian citizens. From Budanov’s entire conversation with Yahoo News journalists, it is clear that when talking about Russians they mean only the Russian government, propagandists, special services employees or servicemen. Despite this, Russian propaganda has tried to compare Budanov with Hitler, who called to ‘kill all Russians’.
In addition, the Yahoo News article talks specifically about those Russians who come under the close attention of the Ukrainian intelligence. ‘About four months before the Russian invasion, one of his (Budanov’s — ed.) deputies showed Yahoo News a website HUR put together featuring the personal photographs, passport, even the results of a prostate ultrasound, all belonging to Maj. Gen. Andrey Averyanov, commander of Russian GRU Unit 29155. Also featured were the passports of the various young Russian women with whom Averyanov has traveled on “business trips” to Sochi and Crimea. Unit 29155 is an elite murder-and-sabotage squad that Western intelligence has blamed for poisoning GRU defector Sergei Skripal, along with his daughter Yulia, in Salisbury, England, in 2018; mounting a failed coup in Montenegro; and blowing up a series of weapons and ammunition facilities in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria,’ the publication said.
Moreover, in late April this year Kyrylo Budanov reiterated his statement, which caused such a stir in Russia, in an interview with the American TV channel PBS. ‘Anyone who has committed war crimes or crimes against humanity in Ukraine, particularly egregious ones such as gang rape or killing civilians and children, will be found and destroyed in any part of the world,’ Budanov said. He also noted that Ukraine is capable of doing this with its own forces and means. Yahoo News journalists also compare the Ukrainian intelligence with Mossad, an Israel national intelligence service, known for its secret counter-terrorist operations outside the country.
Therefore, comparing Budanov with Hitler is another manipulation of the Russian media, designed to portray Ukraine as a country of flourishing Nazism. The Ukrainian intelligence chief never called to kill Russians on the basis of nationality, as the Third Reich did. However, Kyrylo Budanov has repeatedly emphasized that Russian war criminals involved in the war against Ukraine will be found and destroyed.
StopFake continues to refute fakes about Russia’s war against Ukraine in the articles Fake: German Tanks Painted with Nazi Symbols Being Transported to Ukraine, Manipulation: Ukraine Forbids to Celebrate Victory over Nazism Day, Fake: Kateryna Prokopenko Becomes an Influential German Politician.
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