The state agency "RIA Novosti" published a column by propagandist Petro Akopov entitled "A new stage of the dismantling of Ukraine has begun." Its author, a full-time propagandist of several Russian mass media, called on the Russian authorities not to dwell on the destruction already caused. He suggested launching missile strikes until the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine "with a full understanding of the damage it will cause to the civilian population."

Interestingly, Akopov explains the calls for the physical destruction of Ukrainians by the fact that, by destroying the infrastructure and economy of Ukraine, Russia is returning it "to its natural state as part of the Russian world." So the "natural state of the Russian world" is the absence of roads, bridges, heating, and light - all that other Russian propagandists call the "Middle Ages." Moreover, Akopov, like other propagandists, promotes the thesis of the absence of Ukrainians as a nation and calls for the destruction of Ukraine and Ukrainians both physically and through the belief that they are Russians. He calls the war in Ukraine a "civil war" or "a war waged by two states of the same nation." Nevertheless, he insists that Russia can't allow "generations of South Russian people to be brought up in rejection of their Russianness."

These statements correspond to several points of the definition of genocide in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. According to this convention, persons who publicly call for genocide are criminally liable.

Akopov's column is part of a general narrative that denies Ukrainians as a nation and is a modification of the historical fake about "one people," which is also spread by President Putin.

We will remind you that "RIA Novosti" is not the first time to publish calls for the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the genocide of Ukrainians. In early April, another propagandist, Tymofiy Sergeitsev, published a column in which he drew up a plan for the "denazification" of Ukraine for 25 years, which provided for the complete russification of Ukraine, the "repentance" of Ukrainians for "russophobia," as well as the re-education of Ukrainian children according to the rules of Russian propaganda, where Ukrainians don't exist. Still, there are only "malorosy" or simply sick Russians. Sergeitsev called the suffering of Ukrainians from the war a necessary stage of "denazification." President Volodymyr Zelenskyi called Sergeitsev's article evidence at the upcoming tribunal.