Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Thursday that the military offensive against Ukraine made it possible to “cleanse” Russia of people who “have no sense of belonging to the history and culture” of the country, reports AFP.

Since the beginning of the conflict, almost two years ago, hundreds of thousands of people have left the country for political reasons or because of the fear that they will have to join the army, a choice that is strongly condemned by the Russian authorities, reminds AFP, citing Agerpres.

Suppression of any dissident voice has led to the imprisonment of hundreds of people, as Russia does not tolerate any criticism of the Kremlin’s policies, AFP notes.

“The military special operation united our society like never before and helped to cleanse it of people who do not feel connected to Russian history and culture,” said Sergey Lavrov, using the official euphemism for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Some left, others stayed and began to think,” he added during a press conference in Moscow, where he summed up the activities of Russian diplomacy in 2023.

The Russian authorities, which declare their desire to “denazify Ukraine”, are not speaking for the first time about the need to “cleanse” society.

In March 2022, at the very beginning of the conflict, President Vladimir Putin declared that “such a real and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country.”

“Every nation, and the Russian nation in particular, will always be able to recognize scumbags and traitors and spit them out, as one would spit out a fly that got into its mouth,” Putin said, as quoted by AFP.

Lavrov criticizes Israel for the offensive in Gaza and claims that there are “not so many” casualties in Russia’s war in Ukraine

At the same press conference, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia practically equated the Holocaust – the genocide against the Jewish people, carried out by Nazi Germany during the Second World War – with the murders of other peoples by the Nazis, reports RFE/RL on its website. , the Russian antenna of Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL).

Lavrov made this clear while commenting on Israel’s operation against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, recognized by the US and the EU as a terrorist group, in the Gaza Strip.

According to the Russian minister, “Israelis should not create the impression that because they suffered in the Second World War, they can do anything today,” the quoted radio station reported.

“Yes, it was a holocaust, a terrible crime. But there was also genocide against all peoples of the Soviet Union. They suffered no less… If we followed this logic, then we can do anything, everything is allowed to us,” Lavrov said at the press conference.

In this context, the head of Russian diplomacy stated that during Russia’s “military special operation” in Ukraine, “there is nowhere near as many” victims among the civilian population as in the case of the operation currently being conducted by Israel in the Strip. Gaza, reports the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Moscow criticizes Israel, accusing it of a large number of victims among the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

In 2022, Israel protested against a statement by Sergei Lavrov, who claimed that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood,” and in 2023, when he compared the West’s policy toward Russia with Hitler’s actions against the Jews, RFE/RL reports.

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