Status: 02/15/2022 4:54 p.m
Russian President Putin has spoken of a genocide in Ukraine. In doing so, he is taking up allegations that have been circulating for weeks – and could provide a pretext for an invasion.
Warnings of “ethnic cleansing”, mass murders and torture after Ukraine’s offensive against the separatist areas in the east of the country – just one horrifying picture that is currently being portrayed in the Russian state media.
The head of the state news agency “Rossiya Sevodnya”, Dmitry Kiselyov, said at the weekend that civilians in the Donbass region were “tortured and cruelly killed”.
The editor-in-chief of the Russian state broadcaster RT, Margarita Simonyan, also claimed that there was a risk of serious crimes against Russians in Ukraine.
Memories of 2014
Reporter Julia Davies recalled that similar allegations about alleged crimes in Ukraine had already been circulated via RT in 2014 – as a justification for invading Ukraine.
Similar reports have surfaced again for weeks. For example, in December 2021, the US Embassy in Kiev warned against such claims.
The EPP Group Chairman in the EU Parliament, Manfred Weber, also warned of a new war in Europe in December. “The situation is serious. It’s very, very serious,” Weber told the “Münchner Merkur”. In addition to the Russian soldiers near the border, the latest propaganda worried him, Weber said. “Words prepare deeds. Putin speaks of a genocide in the Donbass, which could then be used to justify a war.”
Putin takes up allegation
At today’s press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated the allegation that genocide was taking place in Ukraine. Experts suspect that this could create a pretext for an invasion of Russian troops at any time.