Some Interesting Things Russian Propagandists Have Said About the West and the World

Russian propagandists are facing a new challenge. After years of publicly attacking the Western world, they now have to find a new rhetoric. We’ve put together a selection of leading Russian media personalities and highlighted some of their most striking statements. These figures, decorated with numerous state honors and holding esteemed positions in Russian society, are household names across the nation.

Vladimir Solovyov

Chief Kremlin propagandist, Russian TV host, head of the Russian Union of Journalists, and member of the ruling political party "United Russia."

The US State Department once described this man on their website as someone who "fills the Russian-speaking audience daily with anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian disinformation, hatred, and brutality at Guinness World Record levels."

Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EUvsDisinfo experts documented over 180 instances of disinformation spread by Solovyov between 2015 and 2020.

Notable Quotes:

• "[Instead of the United States] there will be a strait of sea called after Comrade Stalin. And all the cockroaches will drown." (Solovyov frequently uses the term "Stalin Strait" to describe his dream of the US being wiped out by nuclear weapons.)

• "We will send troops [to Europe] to protect the Russian-speaking population. NATO countries will panic! Berlin! Paris! London! Brussels! Are they ready to burn under our missile strikes?"

• "We should bomb Norway because this country is the homeland of NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg."

• "If you think we will stop at Ukraine, think 300 times. I remind you that Ukraine is just an intermediate stage in ensuring the security of the Russian Federation."

• "When this entire operation is over, NATO must ask itself: do we even have the means to defend ourselves? And the people? Because there will be no mercy... The war with Europe, with the world, begins. And we will have to act much tougher."

Despite his aggressive rhetoric against the West, Solovyov has enjoyed its benefits. He purchased several properties in Italy, including a three-story, 16-room villa on the prestigious Lake Como shoreline, worth €4.5 million. He also obtained Italian residency, where his family lived for a long time, and his son worked as a model in London.

Some speculate that his hatred for the US stems from his failed academic career—he attempted to teach at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in the early 1990s, but the venture was unsuccessful, forcing him to return to Russia.

Olga Skabeyeva

Russian propagandist, host of the state-run talk show "60 Minutes" alongside her husband, Evgeny Popov (a Russian member of parliament).

Known for her KGB-style communication, she was nicknamed the "Iron Doll" years ago and is under sanctions in multiple countries.

Notable Quotes:

• "Why bomb Ukraine or Germany when the root of all evil is Great Britain? Well, then we should have bombed it today when all the world's best people gathered for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral."

• "To cope with the economic crisis, the French are now saving on personal hygiene... You can smell the specific stench not only on the streets but even in places where unwashed, uncombed, Russophobic Frenchmen gather."

• "Once “Great” Britain — today it was revealed that some restaurants will start serving people squirrels. These animals are abundant in parks, so why not eat them, considering the food shortages? But they won’t stop supplying weapons to Zelenskyy. They will be eating squirrels."

• "Destroy all Ukrainians to hell! Why? Because they want to destroy us. Either them or us. There is no third option."

When the Ukrainian presidential office called on Russia to stop bombing Ukraine as a step toward peace, Skabeyeva responded:

• "He forgot that Trump doesn’t impose conditions on Russia and Putin. Only on Zelenskyy and Ukraine."

Dmitry Kiselyov

Head of Russian state propaganda media and TV presenter.

In the 1990s, he received an EU grant to create a TV program showcasing the benefits of European integration and foreign healthcare and industrial systems. From 2000 to 2006, he worked at a Ukrainian TV channel and professed his love for Ukrainian culture. Over time, however, he transitioned to extreme anti-American, anti-European, and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. His elder brother has lived in the US for years.

Notable Quotes:

• "Russia is the only country in the world truly capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash."

• "Another way to send Britain to the depths of the sea—Russia's underwater drone 'Poseidon.' There is no way to stop this drone. A thermonuclear torpedo explosion near the UK coastline will create a tsunami up to 500 meters high, carrying extreme doses of radiation, leaving the country a radioactive desert."

• Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kiselyov suggested on air that "gay people's hearts should be burned" if they died in car accidents. Ironically, he later vacationed in Amsterdam—one of the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the world.

Sergey Mardan

One of Russia's most radical propagandists, a TV and radio host.

Notable Quotes:

• "We could organize a fundraiser to have [opposition figure] Lev Ponomaryov killed. How much? $10,000? $20,000? $30,000? $50,000? I think we could raise it in three days... [Chess grandmaster and Putin critic] Garry Kasparov travels freely. Why hasn’t anyone taken care of him?"

• "Here’s London, here’s Edinburgh. I’ve been there. Here’s Manchester, Liverpool. You can probably name British cities that deserve to be hit by an atomic bomb. Here’s France—beautiful France, which we love. Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg… France’s largest nuclear power plant is just 170 km from the capital. In the event of major military conflicts, France and its neighbors will become hopelessly irradiated territories."

• "They write that in the Kursk region, our marines, in a swift attack, captured and executed ten Ukrainian drone operators. What can I say? That's good."

• "The war is being waged so that wagons loaded with the enemy's captured gold are sent to the victorious metropolis, so that everything is good here. I believe that is Putin's concept of victory."

• "All of Ukraine will be methodically turned into a sanitary zone, a war-torn territory. There will be no electricity, transport hubs and bridges will be destroyed, trains won’t run, and large cities won’t be able to sustain normal life, as water supply, sewage systems, and hospitals will not function. These will be cities from which people will flow out. There is a full consensus on the idea that Ukraine must be dismantled brick by brick, so that nothing at all remains there."

• "The priests of the 'Ukrainianness' cult must be destroyed like rabid animals. Without any leniency. That’s obvious. Starting from erasing signs in the language to abolishing the language in secondary schools. Any attempt to speak Ukrainian should be seen as a display of disloyalty (what else could it be?) and should result in the person being blacklisted and banned from any profession other than a supermarket cashier."

• Regarding numerous teachers in the occupied territories who refuse to teach under Russian programs and plan to continue using Ukrainian curricula: "Well, alright, maybe it’s not worth shooting them, but what if we force them to eat the bank cards on which they receive their salaries? Evict them from their apartments. Something in the spirit of the good old GULAG. They are expecting a GULAG, so give them one. Make them shiver! Why not really set up a localized GULAG, neat and tidy, in the steppe under the scorching sun for teachers who haven’t yet learned to love our beautiful motherland."

Margarita Simonyan

Editor-in-Chief of RT (Russia Today) and a key Kremlin propagandist.

As a teenager, she lived with an American family for a year as part of a student exchange program.

Notable Quotes:

• "Russia's defeat would mean that all of humanity has lost to the kingdom of darkness."

• "If we detonate a nuclear explosion over Siberia, nothing will happen. No nuclear winter, no deadly radiation. It will simply disable all electronics, sending us back to 1993. Wired telephones. And I will be happy."

Simonyan also publicly called for mass killings of Ukrainian children in December 2023, leading Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) to issue an arrest warrant for her.

Accountability

Throughout history, propagandists who incited violence and genocide have been held accountable. Here are a few of them:

• Julius Streicher – Nazi newspaper editor, executed in 1946 by the Nuremberg Tribunal for inciting genocide.

• Hans Fritzsche – Nazi radio propagandist, sentenced to nine years in prison for spreading war propaganda.

• Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines – Rwandan radio station that incited genocide, resulting in 800,000 deaths. Its broadcasters received decades-long prison sentences.