Russia placed the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry’s database.
On Saturday afternoon, both Zelenskyy and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, included on the ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. Russian authorities did not immediately clarify the accusations against Zelenskyy and Poroshenko, and independent Russian media outlet Mediazona said on Saturday that the two had been on the list for months.
In an online statement published the same day, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed reports of Zelenskyy’s inclusion as evidence of “the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda.”
Russia’s wanted list also includes dozens of officials and lawmakers from Ukraine and NATO countries. Among them is Kaja Kallas, Prime Minister of NATO and EU member Estonia, who strongly advocated increased military aid to Kiev and stronger sanctions against Moscow.
Russian authorities said in February that Kallas is wanted over Tallinn’s efforts to remove Soviet-era monuments to Red Army soldiers in the Baltic nation, in a belated purge of what many see as symbols of past oppression.
Other NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have also demolished monuments that are widely seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet occupation of those countries.
Russia has laws criminalizing the “rehabilitation of Nazism” that include punishing the “desecration” of war memorials.
Also on Russia’s list are ministers from Estonia and Lithuania, as well as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on accusations of war crimes. Moscow has also accused Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, of what it considers “terrorist” activities, including Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian infrastructure.
The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to link Ukraine’s leaders to Nazism, despite the country having a democratically elected Jewish president who lost family members in the Holocaust, and despite the goal of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and bring closer from the West. .
Moscow named “denazification, demilitarization and a neutral status” of Ukraine as the main objectives of what it insists on calling a “special military operation” against its southern neighbor. The “denazification” claim refers to Russia’s false claims that Ukraine’s government is heavily influenced by radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups – a claim ridiculed by Kiev and its Western allies.
The Holocaust, World War II and Nazism have been important tools for Putin in his attempt to legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine. The Second World War, in which the Soviet Union lost some 27 million people, is a fundamental element of Russia’s national identity, and authorities bristle at any questioning of the USSR’s role.
Some historians say this is associated with an attempt by Russia to retool certain historical truths of war. Russia is said to have attempted to expand the Soviet role in defeating the Nazis, while downplaying any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews, along with allegations of crimes committed by Red Army soldiers against civilians in Eastern Europe.
