Russia has placed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry database.
As of Saturday afternoon, both Zelenskyy and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, were on the ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. Russian officials did not immediately clarify the allegations against Zelenskyy and Poroshenko, with independent Russian media outlet Mediazona claiming on Saturday that the two had been on the list for months.
In an online statement published that same day, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry dismissed reports of Zelenskyy’s inclusion as evidence of “the desperation of the Russian state machinery 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 has fiercely advocated for greater military aid to kyiv and stronger sanctions against Moscow.
Russian officials said in February 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.
NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have also torn down monuments that are widely seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet occupation of those countries.
Russia has laws that criminalize the “rehabilitation of Nazism” and that include punishment for the “desecration” of war memorials.
Also on Russia’s list are cabinet ministers from Estonia and Lithuania, as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin for war crimes. Moscow also accused the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, of what it considers “terrorist” activities, including Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian infrastructure.
The Kremlin has repeatedly tried to link Ukraine’s leaders with 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 get closer to the West. .
Moscow named the “denazification, demilitarization and neutral status” of Ukraine as the key 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, an accusation ridiculed by kyiv 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. World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people, is a lynchpin of Russia’s national identity, and officials bristle at any questioning of the USSR’s role.
Some historians say this has been accompanied by an attempt by Russia to reframe certain historical truths of the war. They say Russia has tried to magnify the Soviet role in defeating the Nazis while downplaying any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews, along with accusations of crimes committed by Red Army soldiers against civilians in Eastern Europe. This.