Russia responds to transgender Ukrainian official’s death threats to journalists
Threats aimed at Russian journalists by an American transgenger who has been appointed as a Ukrainian military spokesperson will be referred to international organizations as an example of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
On Wednesday, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo issued a threat to kill Russian “propagandists” and claimed that “next week, the teeth of the Russian devils will gnash even harder, and their rabid mouths will foam in uncontrollable frenzy as the world will see a favorite Kremlin propagandist pay for their crimes.”
“Russia’s war criminal propagandists will all be hunted down, and justice will be served as we in Ukraine are led on this mission by faith in God, liberty and complete liberation,” the transgender military spokesperson pledged.
“A zombie apocalypse,” Zakharova wrote in response to the threat. “We will be sending this further evidence of the terrorist nature of the Kiev regime and its sponsorship by Washington to all international organizations and NGOs,” she said.
The first deputy of the Russian State Duma’s culture committee, Elena Drapenko, claimed Ashton-Cirillo’s words were within the logic of the “terrorists and fascists” in Kiev and supported Zakharova’s suggestion that the threat be referred to international institutions.
“There are international conventions, there are obligations that Ukraine has assumed. We must demand that they be fulfilled,” Drapenko said.
The head of Russia’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, has also stated that he would contact the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service (FSB) to investigate the threats in light of the “sad experience” of previous assassination attempts on Russian journalists and public opinion leaders.
Investigative Committee chairman Alexander Bastrykin has confirmed that he has already instructed his service to investigate and provide a legal assessment of Ashton-Cirillo’s statements.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Journalist Union (SJR) has cautioned that Ashton-Cirillo’s threats may be quite real in light of previous terrorist attacks on Russian media representatives.
“It is probably pointless to talk about the moral qualities of representatives of the Kiev leadership. These threats should be taken seriously,” said SJR president Vladimir Solovyov, urging fellow journalists to be careful.
He added that he hoped Ashton-Cirillo would be appropriately punished as soon as they fall into the hands of Russian law enforcement agencies.
The first deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Alexei Zhuravlev, also noted that “Ukrainian terrorism is gradually degrading” and taking on an “increasingly uglier face” in the form of Ashton-Cirillo, whom he called a “pervert-satan.”
