Russia's State Duma Speaker Volodin demands Ukraine to be labelled as terrorist state

Amid the ongoing war, Russia's State Duma Speaker (lower house) Vyacheslav Volodin has called for Ukraine to be recognized as a terrorist state for "planning terrorist attacks against Russian journalists." He also stated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should be held accountable for this. "Having unleashed a war against its own people, Kyiv has moved on to terrorist attacks against civilians in other countries. This is what support for neo-Nazi ideology leads to. Ukraine must be recognized as a terrorist state and Zelenskyy should be held accountable," Volodin stated on his Telegram channel, the TASS news agency reported.

The speaker of the State Duma also noted that such acts by Ukraine demonstrate the correctness and timeliness of the Russian Federation's launch of a special military operation. As per the TASS, detained members of the neo-Nazi gang admitted to planning the assassination of journalist Vladimir Solovyov. They also reportedly admitted that they were planning to attack other well-known media and public figures, including Dmitry Kiselev, Olga Skabeeva, Evgeny Popov, Margarita Simonyan, and Tigran Keosayan, among others. 

Russia claims evacuation of around 1 million Ukrainian nationals to its territory

Earlier on April 16, Volodin urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to withdraw from Donbass, recognise Crimea's sovereignty, as well as give up aspirations to join North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He declared that f Ukraine wants the war to end, it must stop fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Meanwhile, Russia has confirmed the evacuation of around 1 million Ukrainian nationals to Russian territory. Since the commencement of the military operation in Ukraine, over 951 thousand residents of Ukraine's breakaway regions of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics have been evacuated to Russia, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. 

Russia-Ukraine war

It is pertinent to mention here that the brutal war between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate and reached its 62nd day on Tuesday, April 26. Since the onset of war, the delegation of both countries has held several rounds of peace negotiations but they have failed to yield desired results. Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has accused Ukraine of preparing provocations in order to blame Moscow and its armed forces. In a statement, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed that the Kyiv regime is mulling using toxic chemicals to strike civilian infrastructure in the area of Odessa port 'Yuzhny,' where at least 10 tons of ammonia were delivered on April 18. 

Image: AP