The Claim:
Russian Senator Dmitry Rogozin posted an image of United States Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin to Twitter, comparing him to a gorilla that has been hunted by African hunters, claiming that “before his illness, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin loved being photographed with pygmies.” On February 26, Rogozin appeared to double down when he posted a video of Ukrainian folk dancing edited with clips of dancing monkeys and a caption reading: “Monkeys must be called monkeys”.
Narrative Context:
Dmitry Rogozin is a Russian ultra-nationalist who is the founder of the Congress of Russian Communities and the neo-fascist Rodina political party. In 2008 he was appointed Russia’s ambassador to NATO and was made infamous by hanging a portrait of Josef Stalin above his desk. He is now a Senator serving Russia’s illegally occupied Zaporozhye Oblast since 23 September 2023.
Rogozin is well known for his anti-NATO and anti-Ukrainian bluster and has used extreme rhetoric in the past to attack critics of the Putin regime. In 2005, Rogozin also appeared in a racist television political ad for his party Rodina.
The Facts:
Rogozin’s post is blatantly racist and false.
Russian historian Sergey Redchenko wrote on Twitter/X that Rogozin’s “racist rants” when “taken together with Medvedev’s nuclear rage and Putin looking for excuses for Hitler to invade Poland, I think they do form an interesting psychological portrait of Russia as it currently is.”
