State Duma deputy Alexander Borodai, who was the first Prime Minister of Donetsk in 2014, has openly called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to be captured and executed by the Russians, branding him a war criminal in the process.
“Zelensky, apart from being a clown, is also a war criminal. Russia needs to catch him and execute him,” said Borodai, quoted by Russian Internet news agency URA.RU. “A fair and honest court, objectively and to the fullest extent of the law, should pass a death sentence on him,” added Borodai.
Very harsh rhetoric, there is also no death penalty in Russia currently – capital punishment, while technically on the books, has been abolished in practice due to a moratorium since 1996.
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) April 6, 2022
Borodai’s call for Zelensky’s capture and execution has little precedent in Russian law, as Russia effectively banned corporal punishment in the country with a moratorium in 1996.
Borodai has deep ties to Donetsk, where he was the startup-state’s first Prime Minister in 2014. He ultimately resigned and went back to Russia, saying that the breakaway republic should be lead by a local, and not a Muscovite. He was elected to the Russian State Duma in 2021.
The international community does not recognize the independence of Donetsk or Luhansk, except for Russia, which acknowledged their existence immediately before launching a “special military operation” against Ukraine.
This is not the first inflammatory remark made by Borodai.
Three days ago, TeleSUR released an “exclusive” interview with Borodai, in which he called Ukraine a “terrorist” and “Nazi” state and said that the United States’ support for such a government will permanently destroy its power on the world stage.
“The future of Donbass is absolutely certain to me,” said Borodai in that interview. “Donbass is going to Russia, and in fact it has already become part of Russia.” He then declared Ukraine “first of all a terrorist state, and second of all a Nazi state.”
He claimed that “The United States itself does not realize what it has done and what a trap they have walked into,” and said the country’s “role in the world is crumbling.”
“The role of the dollar as a world reserve currency no longer exists,” added Borodai, before seeming to suggest that the Russian ruble may be its replacement. “We have to understand that.”
Borodai’s claim that Zelensky is a war criminal follows an international disagreement about dead bodies found in Bucha. Ukraine and the United States blame Russia for killing the civilians, while Russia claims that Ukraine murdered its own people.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February after a years long standoff over the disputed Donbass region sparked by a U.S.-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014. Russia claims it launched a “special military operation” to protect ethnic Russians from Ukrainian state violence, while Ukraine and much of the international community say the invasion was unprovoked.
