- Russia Today host Anton Krasovsky was suspended after calling for Ukrainian children to be killed.
- Krasovsky aimed his comments at Ukrainian children who saw the Soviet Union as occupiers in the 1980s.
A top host on a Russian state-controlled media outlet has been suspended after he called for Ukrainian children who viewed Soviet Russia as an occupier to be drowned or burned in their homes, Reuters reported.
Russia Today (RT) host Anton Krasovsky also said Ukraine is "not supposed to exist at all" and joked about Russian soldiers raping "grannies" on one of the network's shows last week, per translations by journalist Julia Davis, who runs the Russian Media Monitor.
Krasosvky apologized in a social media post on Monday, saying he got "carried away" and is "really embarrassed," according to Reuters. Russia's investigative committee, which deals with serious crimes, has ordered a probe, the outlet reported.
RT's director, Margarita Simonyan, said in a Telegram post on Sunday that the remarks were "wild and disgusting" and said that the network is severing ties with him "for now."
Davis posted a clip of the conversation, with subtitles, to Twitter:
—Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 23, 2022
In the conversation, Russian science fiction writer Sergei Lukyanenko spoke of having visited Ukraine during its membership of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and said he recalled meeting children who believed that they were under Russian occupation, rather than part of the Soviet state.
Krasovsky replied: "Just drown those children, drown them," before going on to describe Ukrainians as having "piece of shit little houses."
"There are masses of awful, monstrous little houses, they shit all over the Carpathian Mountains," he went on. "Shove them right into those huts and burn them up."
He went on to assert that Ukraine is "not supposed to exist at all."
He also made crude remarks about a recent claim by a UN official that Russian soldiers being given viagra in order to commit rape as part of the current war in Ukraine.
He spoke sarcastically about viagra being "handed out to our soldiers for them to rape Ukrainian grannies," per Davis' translation.
"God, those grannies would spend their burial savings to get raped by Russian soldiers," he added.
The remarks have provoked widespread outrage, with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba calling the words "aggressive genocide incitement" and calling for RT to be banned worldwide.
—Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) October 23, 2022
Krasosvky, who hosted the show "The Antonym," is currently under EU sanctions as a propagandist. RT was banned in the EU in March over systematic disinformation about the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.