“Good Russians” can only be found in graveyards, the mayor of the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Andrey Sadovoy, has said.
The official made the remarks in response to a forum organized in May by a group of Russian exiles who support Kiev’s war effort against their home country.
The event included former Russian MP Ilya Ponomarev, who claims to represent ostensibly Russian militias fighting on the Ukrainian side of the conflict with Moscow. Russia considers the militias to be terrorist organizations operated by Kiev’s military intelligence.
In an interview with RBK Ukraine on Monday, Sadovoy was asked about criticism of the event that he had expressed on social media.
“Moscals are moscals,” he replied, using a derogatory term for Russians. “I consider that [the forum] a shame and a provocation.”
The interviewer then asked about self-described “good Russians” who feature in the Ukrainian media.
“Do you think that such a category as ‘good Russians’ exists?” the journalist asked, to which the mayor replied: “At the cemetery.”
Russia “was, is, and always will be an enemy, and this war will not ever end,” Sadovoy claimed. He added that he considers the Russian language to be a threat, warning that “Moskalata will pour billions into destabilizing the situation in Ukraine,” including by backing groups that support Russian culture.
The mayor boasted that Lviv is the largest Ukrainian-speaking city in the world, and that Russian-speaking Ukrainians switch languages after arriving. Unlike Ivano-Frankovsk, another large city in Western Ukraine, Lviv has no need for “language patrols,” the official stated.
The term “good Russians” was proposed in 2022 by a group calling itself the ‘Anti-War Committee of Russia’, which includes long-time opponents of the Kremlin living abroad. Chess master Garry Kasparov, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky are among its prominent members.
The collective proposed a document dubbed ‘passport of a good Russian’, which would be issued by Western nations and would grant Russian citizens opposing Moscow various privileges, while others would have to deal with Western sanctions. The idea was discarded, including due to protests by Ukrainian officials.