On July 30, 2025 Russia state media outlet RIA Novosti, published an opinion piece published by a radical Russian nationalist Kirill Strelnikov, titled “There is no other option: no one should be left alive in Ukraine.” The article is one of the clearest examples of open genocidal propaganda in Russian state media since the start of the full-scale invasion. Russian media monitoring expert Julia Davis brought initial attention to it.
The Claims
- “No one should be left alive in Ukraine”: this is a direct and unambiguous call for the physical extermination of all Ukrainians is presented as a necessary solution to the conflict.
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The piece claims that Ukrainian soldiers as ” laboratory rats, which are ruthlessly killed for experiments.”
- The author crudely claims that “Ukrainians are even happy with their fate”.
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The war is characterized as no longer a military conflict between states, but as a scenario where Ukraine exists solely as a Western military training ground, implying that Ukrainian agency is null and that Ukrainians are tools or obstacles, not a people.
The Facts
- The RIA Novosti article’s demand that “no one should be left alive in Ukraine” constitutes direct and public incitement to genocide, a crime under international law. By calling for the total extermination of Ukrainians as a national group, it meets the legal threshold set by the UN Genocide Convention and echoes historical precedents for state-promoted mass violence.
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No significant attempt is made in the article to distinguish between combatants and civilians, nor is any effort made to reference international law or military necessity. Instead, the call for death is total.
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Describing human beings as laboratory rats and unworthy of burial rites, falls squarely within internationally recognized definitions of incitement to genocide.
Narrative Context:
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Total dehumanization: Ukrainians are portrayed not as people with agency but as vermin, test subjects, or simply as corpses undeserving of respect.
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Moral inversion: The suggestion is that killing Ukrainians is not only acceptable but necessary, and that showing them dignity in death would be absurd.
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Audience targeting: This piece is published in Russian, for a Russian domestic audience, likely intended to normalize mass violence and escalate public support for extreme measures in Ukraine.
This Russian state media article reflects an escalation in Kremlin-backed rhetoric to explicit genocidal incitement. The article calls for the annihilation of Ukrainians themselves.
By publishing this article under the RIA Novosti banner, the Russian state is actively promoting a narrative that meets international thresholds for incitement to genocide, under both the Genocide Convention and customary international law.
