MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday criticized Europe for “Russophobia” and took aim at the Baltic States over human rights issues during the unveiling of a World War II memorial.
Using the occasion to rally his nation by drawing comparisons to the fight against the Nazis, Putin accused the regime in Kyiv of exalting Hitler’s accomplices and claimed that Russophobia is promoted as state policy in some European countries.
“The Kyiv government glorifies Hitler’s collaborators, the SS men… In several European nations, there is a promotion of Russophobia as official policy,” said the Russian President during the 80th-anniversary commemoration of the end of the Nazi siege in the region.
He said that the Germans’ objectives at that time were to plunder the Soviet Union’s resources and exterminate its people.
Russian President also criticized the Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—for allegedly declaring tens of thousands of people as subhuman, depriving them of basic rights, and subjecting them to persecution, particularly in the context of migration crackdowns. The Baltic nations were ruled from Moscow during the Cold War but now members of the EU.
