A Russian state TV anchor was suspended for inciting genocide by saying that Ukraine children should be burnt alive and drowned.
Anton Krasovsky, the 47-year-old presenter at the state-funded Russia Today (RT), triggered a massive outrage after he said, “They should have been drowned in the Tysyna [river].”
“Just drown those children, drown them,” he said last week during a live broadcast which hosted a fiction writer.
He further said that they could be shoved into huts and burned, apart from jokingly suggesting that Russian soldiers should be raping Ukrainian grandmothers.
Apparently, Krasovsky’s comments came in response to a guest talking about meeting Ukrainian children in the 1980s who said they saw Russia as an occupier in Soviet times.
His comments drew wide condemnation from the Ukraine officials as well as the Russian authorities, who have launched a probe into the matter.
According to reports, Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, is probing Krasovsky’s comments.
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba shared a clip of the show calling for an immediate ban on the RT channel.
“This is what you side with if you allow RT to operate in your countries. Aggressive genocide incitement (we will put this person on trial for it), which has nothing to do with freedom of speech,” he tweeted.
Governments which still have not banned RT must watch this excerpt. This is what you side with if you allow RT to operate in your countries. Aggressive genocide incitement (we will put this person on trial for it), which has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Ban RT worldwide! https://t.co/xJC371rqyg
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) October 23, 2022
After facing backlash, Krasovsky, who joined RT in 2020, apologised for his remarks on Monday, saying that he was “truly embarrassed that I somehow didn’t see the boundary. About children. But it happens like this: you’re in the middle of a broadcast, and you get carried away. And you can’t stop … I hope you’ll forgive me.”
RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, in a post said that the incident has embarrassed the channel and sought to distance itself from Krasovsky’s remarks.
“For the moment, I am halting our cooperation [with Krasovsky], because neither I nor the rest of the RT team can allow even the thought to flash that one of us is capable of supporting such savagery.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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