An op-ed published by Russian state media on Sunday claimed that "Ukronazism" is a greater threat to the world than Hitler's Nazi Party and called for a complete Russian takeover of Ukrainian territory and culture, as Ukrainian forces continued to push back Russian invaders on Monday.
Timofey Sergeytsev claimed in the op-ed published on RIA Novosti that the "Nazism" in Ukraine is "disguised as a desire for 'independence' and a 'European' (Western, pro-American) path of 'development' (in reality - to degradation)."
He also wrote that the "majority" of Ukrainians are "passive Nazis, accomplices of Nazism," saying that they "are also guilty" and that they "must survive the hardships of the war and assimilate the experience as a historical lesson and atonement for [their] guilt."
The writer additionally stated that in peacetime it would be necessary to "achieve irreversible changes" and that forced labor, the death penalty and imprisonment would be used as punishment against the "accomplices of the Nazi regime."
"Denazification is necessary when a significant part of the people - most likely the majority - has been mastered and drawn into the Nazi regime in its politics. That is, when the hypothesis "the people are good - the government is bad" does not work," wrote Sergeytsev.
The writer added that "denazification" can only be carried out by the "winner," stressing that this meant that "a denazified country cannot be sovereign."
"Unlike, say, Georgia and the Baltic countries, Ukraine, as history has shown, is impossible as a nation-state, and attempts to "build" one naturally lead to Nazism," wrote Sergeytsev in the RIA Novosti article.
The writer called for those who took up arms during the Russian invasion of Ukraine to be "destroyed to the maximum," saying no significant distinction should be made between the formal military and civilians who took up arms to protect themselves against Russian invaders.
"All of them are equally involved in extreme cruelty against the civilian population, equally guilty of the genocide of the Russian people [and] do not comply with the laws and customs of war. War criminals and active Nazis should be exemplarily and exponentially punished," wrote Sergeytsev.
Sergeytsev explained that further "denazification" of the majority of the population would need to be conducted through "reeducation" which would be achieved by "ideological repression (suppression) of Nazi attitudes and strict censorship: not only in the political sphere but also necessary in the sphere of culture and education."
The writer added that the "denazification" efforts would need to last at least for one generation "which must be born, grow up and reach maturity under the conditions of denazification." He added that the "ethnic component of self-identification" of Ukraine would also be rejected and that the name "Ukraine" would also need to be removed from any "fully denazified state entity."
Sergeytsev additionally stated that if conquered, western Ukraine would likely remain hostile to Russia and would be "forcibly neutral and demilitarized," adding that "the haters of Russia will go there." The writer added that from a line drawn between western Ukraine and Russia, the population would be "integrated" into Russian civilization.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and a descendant of Holocaust survivors.
Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began in February, RIA Novosti published an op-ed saying that Russia is "restoring its unity" and providing a "solution to the Ukrainian question" in its invasion of Ukraine. The article was taken down shortly after it was published.
That article also lamented Ukraine's independence from Russia, calling it a "terrible catastrophe" and an "unnatural dislocation." The op-ed additionally referred to Belarus as part of Russia's "historical fullness," although it did not explicitly make statements about any Russian action in Belarus.