Sergey Mardan

Perhaps the most hateful presenter? Very detached, kind of cold hatred.

Shortly after Putin announced the need “unification” holiday to celebrate the conquering of Ukrainian territory of 2022, Mr. Mardan explained the nature of Russian politics like so:

BadBalticTakes commented on X (formerly Twitter):

Watch this latest video from russian state TV. It will be shown at russia’s tribunal. It will be studied in history classes by your children and grand children. Quotes from this clip: 

“You understand that this list [of territories to be conquered] is incomplete. Everyone understands that this list is incomplete.”

“It doesn’t matter what you call it …denazification or demilitarisation. Call it whatever you want. Everyone knows what it really means …the restoration of the russian empire.”

“There are some nations whose existence is pointless.”

And BadBalticTakes continues:

This is just one clip of thousands of hours of footage in which the hatred and  genocidal intentions of russia are on full display. It’s all documented for history.

He’s right when he says everyone already knows what is happening.

This is your regular reminder that future generations will not be in any doubt that you know right now that russia is a genocidal imperial aggressor. It’s very open about it.

Polling in russia shows russians overwhelmingly believe the goal of their war is territorial conquest, not any of the excuses peddled by its supporters abroad.

All of us around the world will have no plausible deniability that we didn’t know what was going on.

You can see these clips.

You can see the dictator literally standing over imperial era maps, comparing himself to other tsars, and discussing the erasure of a sovereign nation.

You can read endless, carefully documented testimonies from people who have escaped the horrors of russian occupation and its very clearly genocidal nature.

You know about all this. You scrolled past it. History will judge what you do now based on the fact that you know.

It’s the reason no one has ever expressed any confusion about russia’s talk of imperial conquest or its use of neo-nazis to achieve it. Not a single person has ever said: “wait, this doesn’t make sense if it’s just a special operation to denazify and demilitarise Ukraine”. No one has ever said that because, as russian TV makes clear, no one is in doubt about what all this is really about.

Russian soldiers who feign ignorance of being invaders when they are captured actually have no problem boasting of their atrocities in intercepted phone calls.

Academics who insist the war is in some way excusable are suddenly very articulate about why imperialism and genocide is wrong when russia is not doing it.

They know. They have just chosen to support genocidal imperialism in this case. Don’t let them gaslight you with excuses.

There’s one irony here though.

Russia’s war is based on denying the agency of Ukrainians and all nations in the way of russia’s expansionist aggression. However, the key to ending this is for us to respect the agency of those who deny ours.

Don’t think of them as brainwashed or too stupid to know what’s going on. 

Respect their agency as supporters of imperial genocide. They are responsible for everything they are doing and must face the consequences of that.

One day, the chorus of propaganda offering excuses will fall silent, as it did during the Nuremberg tribunal. The horrors of russia’s genocidal crimes will be more fully documented.

As after Nuremberg, no one in future will give a shit about the excuses offered in our era to deny or delay the defeat of the genocidal aggressor and bring its leaders to justice.

Make sure you can look your children and grandchildren in the eye and tell them what you did now to help achieve that.

Send this clip to The Hague, along with all the others.