Vitaly Milonov is a prominent Russian conservative and member of the United Russia party. A staunch advocate of Russia’s controversial ban on “homosexual propaganda,” and he has also repeatedly made anti-Semitic statements, including during a session of the St. Petersburg legislative council in March. He is a prominent critic of the pro-EU Ukrainian movement, and is often considered an ideological leader of Russian conservatism.
Of note in this interview, Milonov’s argument that Russia needs to invade Ukraine on humanitarian grounds, that the Americans were trying to capture the Russian bases in Sevastopol to use them to attack Syria, and his description of Ukrainian acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov as “Arsen the Homo.” – Ed.
Slon publishes an interview with one of the most prominent figures of the new conservative wave, a Deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Vitaly Milonov. The conversation took place in Crimea, where Milonov was present as an observer at the referendum.
– What did you see in Sevastopol as an observer?
To be an observer at the referendum is a big freebie. If in Russia we view elections as some process of inner tension, and people as paranoid, looking for election riggers, here the result is obvious. Nuances can be in percentages, but I haven’s seen a single ballot [marked in favor of Ukraine]. One wouldn’t have to worry about violations, because nobody, including politicians, wants them here, as any irregularities would cast a shadow on the legitimacy of elections.
– Do you think that this referendum has any legitimacy at all?
Yesterday I was having mullet with a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada [Vadim Kolesnichenko]. He happened to be here because his apartment in Kiev was burned by some scum, his wife and children were threatened, and he barely managed escape and to take them out of town. He does not have [enormous wealth, unlike Pshonka, the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine]. He is here just trying to survive.
I deny the legitimacy of the Verkhovna Rada, which kicked out those who disagreed, and intimidated those who stayed. Dozens of his colleagues are forced to constitute a quorum in parliament, because they all have businesses, property or family. They were told that their families would be alive only if they vote in a certain way. With this kind of rulers, I’m ready to play only in Counter-Strike, and only for real.
When the representative branch [in Kiev] is questionable at a minimum, we should use the most powerful argument, that is impossible to counter, i.e. the mechanism of direct democracy. A referendum can be declared illegal in terms of casuistry, but it a priori expresses the point of view of the population. If the country, having cleansed itself of the Maidan sludge, considers itself a democracy, it cannot deny the results of the referendum.
Photo by Pyotr Shelomovsky
– What would you say if a similar referendum was held in Dagestan or Tatarstan?
Neither in Dagestan, nor in other parts of Russia, we have a situation similar to what is happening in Ukraine. If dissident liberals [in Ukraine] were elected to the Parliament, did the hell away with the Party of Regions or Yanukovych, locked up Yulia Tymoshenko back in the slammer, that would be a legitimate solution. However nobody elected them. Currently there is no government body elected by the people.
– But the Rada has been elected by the people!
This is a parliament that operates feeling an unpleasant chill of gunmetal against its temple. I remember a movie with Robert de Niro, where he said: “No man can stand torture.” An American principle of “Promises given to terrorists during negotiations do not mean anything” is very important for me. And we are dealing with terrorists.
I do not believe that all those in Ukraine who disagree with Russia are Banderovites. Of course, not. Most of the people I saw on Maidan in December (Milonov visited Kiev, spoke at the Anti-Maidan rally in support of preserving the government of Viktor Yanukovych and visited Maidan. – Slon), have nothing to do with [Stepan] Bandera. Yes, crazy assholes wearing this uniform were roaming around (probably refers to supporters of the OUN and UPA. – Slon), but they are the same assholes as those mustached men who were sitting there with their mandolins, their unwashed bodies stinking all over Maidan.
Of course, I realize that, in all honesty, even with the lousiest government of [the ex-president Viktor] Yushchenko, such a referendum would be illegitimate. Yushchenko was elected illegally, with lots of irregularities, but under him a referendum wouldn’t even be possible. Now the rules of the game have been canceled by somebody else, not us.
– So why can’t a referendum be held in Dagestan?
They have representative government bodies, we have them in Russia. Here we don’t expel anyone, we don’t overthrow branches of government against a background of burning and stinking tires. A person can strongly disagree with those who are elected, but they are elected.
Nobody asked Crimeans if they wanted to live under a new regime. One day, life in Ukraine will get back to normal, but now it is not a safe place for a normal person. Only those who support the revolution can feel safe in Ukraine.
– But in eastern Ukraine it is those who support it who feel unsafe.
What is happening in the East is a reaction of the immune system. It is my deep conviction that we cannot leave the Crimea for Moscow or St. Petersburg. The Crimea is a blossoming of a new Ukrainian spring. We, the people who are not indifferent, who are willing to help everyone with whatever they can, have to go the east of Ukraine, where people who participate in an opposition rally are criminally prosecuted, but the activists of the Right Sector are not.
– However that’s something that happened in Russia!
Russia was forced to react. If we chose not to initiate criminal cases against fascists, we would be worthless. I believe that [the leader of the Right Sector] Dmitry Yarosh should have ended up in a Lubyanka dungeon, and that would be fair. After all, we have some good old traditions. What needs to be done to him is to splash poison all over his snout, like they did to Bandera, or what would be even more fair, to bring him to Lubyanka with his hands tied behind his back and to do the justice.
What I’m talking about is the [lack] of reaction by the Ukrainian authorities. For example, the Armenian, the new Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, as I recall, gave all the police officers’ personal files to the CIA. Why doesn’t he speak about that? He is a condom used by the U.S. intelligence agencies. People like him are rubbed out in the shithouse by their own kind.
– They say, he is gay too, and you probably find it especially unpleasant.
That he is a homosexual I found out from a video they had sent to me, knowing that I don’t like sodomites. How can the top cop be a faggot? To me it doesn’t make sense. I would not shake his hand, because he raped young boys for money, and those boys told about this. Such people suit Western democracy, they don’t mind it over there.
– So, do you think Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Odessa should be “returned” to Russia?
Of course! You have to understand that Putin was faced with a very difficult choice. Putin is not the one who created this situation. Privately I think that no one wanted this situation to happen, but we were forced to react. Did anything change under Yushchenko? Then nothing terrible happened. But this time, the next step would be shutting down the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation.
– What makes you think so?
The current government refuses to discuss issues of cooperation with Russia in principle. It was brought about by bayonets and stinking burning tires. My assistant was almost killed on Maidan, just because he is Jewish. My boys from the “Parental Control” had to fight for him, to fight hard, throwing punches and kicks.
This whole story was made up by ugly Americans. It’s not that I’m a paranoid, who reads too much of the Pravda newspaper. I’m not anti-American either. The way I see it is that the American voters need to be consolidated urgently for Democrats to win over at least part of the Republican electorate and for Barack Obama’s successor to win. But Ben Bernanke and his followers led America to the brink of financial abyss. This is not malevolence, but the fact, since 17 trillion dollars is a big problem that the United States should tackle using both political and economic tools.
Take Syria, for example, where there is both oil and an important base, that the U.S. wants to take. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is in their way. Peter the Great [the name of a Russian naval ship] and a few other warships in the Mediterranean will be deprived of support, and so the base needs to be removed. That’s what [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad told me (Milonov came to the interview wearing a jacket by Thor Steinar, a brand popular among Russian ultra-radicals, and a badge with a picture of Assad on the lapel. – Slon), whom I met a few days ago. He told me that as soon as Americans had switched their attention to Ukraine, their influence in Syria had waned, while the government had started to retake the settlements it had lost control of.
European politicians, who are mostly not too much of personalities, unfortunately let Americans trick them into all this. We now have to counter not only America, but also its so called “euronashisti.” They, just like some mislead youngsters, attack Russia with a sincere gleam in their eyes, demanding sanctions. So my place as a caring person who is not part of the presidential administration staff, or an instrument of the bloody KGB structures, is not here. There is nothing else to do here, I need to go to Paris, Stockholm, or London.
– And what about Lugansk, Donetsk?
Of course, that’s where our combat mission is! Anyone who is here, has to go further north and liberate [the country] from scum.
Personally for me it is more important to restore the influence of the Russian world in the true sense of the word. Something that we have destroyed, fearing that this was influenced by the communist ideology. Only now I’ve realized that it was a matter of geopolitical influence: in each country there were parties, public organizations, other structures that worked for the USSR. Never mind the communist ideology, but they worked for the country, they voiced the right ideas. Now there is no one to voice them.
For 23 years Russia hasn’t been paying enough attention to Ukraine, our diplomats haven’t done anything in terms of building proper relationships with any organizations. Over the same 23 years Americans and Europeans have conducted seminars for politicians, supported NGOs and all kinds of organizations and political structures.
– Does it mean you intend to revive that?
Yes, the Foreign Ministry should not be the only ones recreating the Russian world, we build political structures abroad using something other than the diplomatic language.
– In other words, you have banned foreign agents in Russia, and now you will try to proliferate yours around the world?
Of course, we also make sure that foreign missiles do not fall on Russia, however our missiles are aimed at other countries. It’s the same thing. It’s time for us to stop playing the role of a goalie, who deflects a series of fifteen shots on goal. We should at least move to an active defense.
– The main argument against the referendum was that it was held at the point of a machine gun.
I haven’t really seen any machine guns. The roadblocks set up by the self-defense forces have no effect on the referendum, however they detained several cars that came here filled with weapons. On Monday, some assholes from central Ukraine staged a gunfight in a children’s park, emptying a whole magazine. In Israel and Lebanon they also have checkpoints, but elections are held, and no one screams. I have seen a few “polite people,” but only in those places where Ukrainian soldiers are, who by the way drink quite heavily. That’s all. The “polite people” (machine gun carrying soldiers, who belong to the Russian Armed Forces, although it is not officially recognized. – Slon) actually make sure that no one on this side of the fence throws a Molotov cocktail at these soldiers. So it’s a humanitarian mission.
Speaking about the gunpoint, don’t they hold elections in Kosovo at the point of NATO machine guns, while hundreds of Serbian women are raped, and children’s bodies are torn apart for organs? Is this democracy? Were those not the Turkish fascist scum that seized Northern Cyprus even without any referendum, don’t they march, imitating the Nazis, having expelled all the Greek patriots just because their noses are of a different shape? Was Turkey ever subjected to any sanctions for that? No, they kissed it deep in the ass and were accepted into NATO. This kind of democracy can kiss my ass!
– You’ve always objected against the independence of Kosovo, and now you justify the referendum in the Crimea by its example.
Kosovo was the second opening of Pandora’s box in Europe. The first time it was done by Americans, when the Turkish junta captured Northern Cyprus while the USSR took a dishonest and weak position. Here, in the Crimea, Ukrainian soldiers are not being shot at, Crimean Tatars shout at the top of their lungs for the money they receive from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
These pigs shouted at me: “Russian pigs, get out of the Crimea”, and I will not forgive these people. They are real pigs who supported Hitler during the war. These are the grandchildren of the Nazi bitches, and they scream at Russians: “Get out of the Crimea.” I’m sorry, but does anybody touch them? Crimeans just asked me not to touch them, because when some Tatar started yelling at me that we are Russian pigs and invaders, I was about to punch him in the face. We are not Russian invaders, we are Russian brothers who came home to another part of Russia where our Crimean brothers live.
I was told that we need to make sure these people don’t have a chance to claim being oppressed. In Kosovo while the referendum was going on, Albanians were carrying out executions of Serbs. Here no one’s rights are violated. These are different situations. As to the situation in Northern Cyprus, it was an Anschluss of the territory, with Turks following the footsteps of their spiritual leader, Hitler!
– So, now because of a similar Anschluss they compare Putin to Hitler.
Those are scum like that Shenderovich, they got the signal and started to compare the Olympics of 2014 and 1936. Have Russian troops killed or arrested anyone? Have they somehow interfered with the referendum? Is anyone voting being threatened with force? The people on the streets of Simferopol and Sevastopol are normal people, not Nashisti or some on the KGB payroll.
Photo by Pyotr Shelomovsky
– Well, you know, Nazis were also welcomed with open arms in Ukraine.
That’s exactly my point. People in eastern Ukraine welcome their brothers from Russia with open arms, and Western parts would greet Hitler the same way. And as soon as they let Western Ukraine act according to its beliefs, these freaks will rush to massacre Jews and Poles. How come Europe does not remember this? It’s no secret that the ideology of the majority of western Ukrainians is deeply anti-Semitic. Why does Europe impose sanctions against Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Kiselev, but not against a nationalist, a bastard and potentially a dead man, Dmitry Yarosh?
– But have you seen Kiselev’s shows? It’s nothing but blatant propaganda.
But what Yarosh does is not propaganda, it’s murders and fascism. Sorry, but I can say that my Jewish father-in-law would not want to see Yarosh becoming a politician. But there are no sanctions against him, he is more acceptable for Europe than Kiselev, who is however a journalist, who has his point of view, albeit unpleasant for some. I wouldn’t be surprised if I end up on the list of those names.
Photo by Pyotr Shelomovsky
– And I wouldn’t be surprised either.
Ukraine is run by some really despicable characters. Look at this Igor Kolomoysky [a new governor of Dnepropetrovsk region, a tycoon ] – he is really disgusting, he is a person you don’t really want to stand next to in the bathroom, he will just pull something out of your pocket.
– Isn’t this an anti-Semitic remark?
My Jewish wife uses much tougher words speaking about Kolomoysky. Her words would melt down your voice recorder. Kolomoysky is a crook, a thug and a thief, and his place is in the fifth corner of the cell, next to the john, and not in politics. Europe is ready to forgive all sins for the sake of geopolitical interests of the United States. If the U.S. are so eager to grab land here to easily attack Syria, why wouldn’t they print their nice wrappers and send them to the fools in the current Ukrainian government. They will manage for some time, however without any industry or economy they won’t last long.
– And is it really worth it for Russia to spend money on supporting the Crimea? Maybe it’s better to spend it on its own citizens?
It’s for the other subjects to have a chance for a better future. Without the Black Sea Fleet Russia will not last long, it’s obvious. We have no historical right to give away what our grandfathers spilled their blood to win back. They conquered the Crimea back, and we won’t give it up for nothing? And I do not support Yanukovych or his thugs.
– But you spoke at the Anti-Maidan!
I didn’t speak in support of Yanukovych, I spoke against the fascists. I said that we, the people of Leningrad, survived the Nazi siege, and now I see that fascists are getting closer to Kiev. But the Party of Regions has done everything it could for Maidan to happen, so it’s silly to blame everything on some evil outside forces. A Maidan can happen in any country where they steal on the scale they did in Ukraine.
– They don’t steal on that scale in Russia?
No. Believe me, I know that, as a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. We have to fight to push any change to the master plan, I know, some people are unable to take even some justified legal action to change the status of property. Here, a friend of mine found investors to build an international airport in Sevastopol, and it appeared that an additional 200 meters of runway had to be built, but they had been stolen by some freak who had sold the land for a bribe.
– Do you think there will be a war?
I believe that a conflict is inevitable in this situation, because Kiev and its Western allies believe that they have to hold on to these territories at all costs.
– They can be understood.
Here, the Donetsk resistance leader [Pavel Gubarev] was imprisoned. For what? He is an alternative leader. They did not throw Navalny in the slammer!
– Wait a second, he actually took over the Donetsk regional administration. If Yavlinsky took over the St. Petersburg administration, you wouldn’t lock him up?
Girls are not allowed in the St. Petersburg administration. This is number one. And number two, he freed the administration of activists of the Right Sector (Milonov goes on to confuse the situation in Donetsk with the one in Kharkiv. – Slon). [Gubarev] freed the administration, and the Right Sector was armed. My friends in Kharkiv wrote to me that criminal charges had been brought against them, but they will fight for freedom, otherwise they will be killed. They decided to push out the activists of the Right Sector, because they knew that it was the beginning of a big, big war. In the end those activists were not even slapped on the wrist, were not even fined, while the guys who cleared their city administration of thugs while the local cops were doing nothing but changing their diapers, were locked up.
– But in Donetsk, some people were killed by pro-Russian activists.
In Donetsk the murders were committed by activists from the Right Sector, it is a fact. Moreover, when there is such a confrontation, people will die on both sides. There’s enough crazy scumbags on all sides. Arsen the Homo has no control over his cops. Not a single report by victims was ever investigated. Their cops are girls dancing in “Swan Lake,” and there will be chaos.
In Ukraine, chaos is everywhere, anyway. I believe that Russia has a moral right to launch a peacekeeping mission. This is an area of our responsibility, we are talking about our national interests. Because those filthy Maidan bastards stole some “Igla” MANPADS, and now our aircraft do not fly over Ukraine, bypassing it [this claim has been denied by the Ukrainian government – The Interpreter]. Can we afford something like this to happen in the 21st century?
– So, you think that bringing in the troops is the way out?
Having an aggressive crowd of armed people on its border, Russia must respond. The fascist state of Turkey invaded Cyprus because of phony threat to Turkish Cypriots, and it was not condemned by the international community. And here, there is a real threat to lives of millions of people in Eastern Ukraine. If in England there are some normal people among those junky faggots, they should let their leverage to engage Merkel and other bodies and try to secure a political settlement and security of people. Why, when the pink scum raise their shitty banners saying that they are fags and their rights should be respected in Russia, and when they get arrested, they immediately cry repression against gays? And when a person is arrested simply for being in opposition, and is taken away by some stoned security men, it is considered normal.
If Arsen the Homo cannot ensure security, it must be ensured without interfering in state governance mechanism. If people do not want to follow the path of the German whores from Lvov, if they say that they have nothing to do with the sons of bitches, the grandchildren of women who were Germans’ bitches, [Russia needs to intervene].