MEDVEDEV: MARTENS WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS QUESTION ABOUT KILLING RUSSIANS

MOSCOW, August 12 /SRNA/ – Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said that Michael Martens, a journalist with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, would one day be held accountable for his question about killing Russians. Medvedev said that in the past, people had been expelled from the profession for asking such questions. “No one can speak like that. You can think whatever you want, say something in the hallway, but when you publicly ask such a question, you have to understand that there will be a reaction,” said Medvedev, who is also chairman of the United Russia party. He added that Martens would one day bear his share of responsibility. “I will not wish this man either harm or good,” Medvedev said at a meeting of the expert council of the United Russia party. On August 8, at a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić in Belgrade, Martens asked what European countries could do to “help kill more Russians”. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that calls for the extermination of people based on ethnicity were unacceptable and criminal. She added that Martens’ grandfather had been a high-ranking Nazi officer who served in the Wehrmacht High Command. Zakharova also said that the international community had not reacted to Martens’ question.