By: Mohammed Jinadu
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
As of Saturday afternoon, both Zelenskyy and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, featured on the ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. Russian officials did not immediately clarify the allegations against Zelenskyy and Poroshenko, and independent Russian news outlet Mediazona claimed on Saturday that the two had been on the list for months.
Russian officials in February said that Kallas is wanted because of Tallinn’s efforts to remove Soviet-era monuments to Red Army soldiers in the Baltic nation, in a belated purge of what many consider symbols of past oppression.
Russia’s wanted list also includes scores of officials and lawmakers from Ukraine and NATO countries. Among them is Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of NATO and EU member Estonia, who has fiercely advocated for increased military aid to Kyiv and stronger sanctions against Moscow.
The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to link Ukraine’s leaders to Nazism, even though the country has a democratically elected Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and despite the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.
Moscow named “de-Nazification, de-militarization and a neutral status” of Ukraine as the key goals of what it insists on calling a “special military operation” against its southern neighbor. The claim of “de-Nazification” refers to Russia’s false assertions that Ukraine’s government is heavily influenced by radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups – an allegation derided by Kyiv and its Western allies.
Fellow NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have also pulled down 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.
