Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, sparked outrage in Ukraine with a Twitter post that was later deleted. On Saturday night, Ulyanov responded to a tweet from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, thanking him for US arms deliveries, with “No mercy to the Ukrainian people!” Representatives of Ukraine interpreted this as a call for genocide.
“The Russian ambassador to Austria, Ulyanov, speaks of the need for a ‘final solution to the Ukrainian issue’ and calls for genocide,” Zelenskyi adviser Mikhail Podoliak said on Twitter on Saturday morning. At the same time, he complained that voices like “Not all Russians are Putin” or “Maybe we should activate Nord Stream 2” were heard in Europe. It is time to understand that Russia is a fascist power structure with millions of people, Podoljak wrote in Ukrainian.
“Emotionally Reacted”
Ulyanov, who later deleted his English tweet, felt misunderstood on Saturday. In a phone call to the APA, he said he was “of course not” advocating genocide against the Ukrainians. “If you read what I have written on Twitter in recent years, you will not find anything contemptuous about the Ukrainian people,” the diplomat said. Maybe he should have written a question mark instead of an exclamation mark, he thought. “But I reacted emotionally to Zelenskyi’s message – again only weapons, no diplomacy,” he explained.
Constant fuss about statements
Ulyanov, who recently worked mainly as a Russian negotiator on the nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna, is not the first Russian diplomat in Vienna whose activities on social networks have sparked discussions. Konstantin Gawrilow, responsible for the disarmament negotiations in Vienna, also tweeted a NEOS parliamentary question to Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) in mid-August. The senior Russian diplomat previously shared a tweet in which a self-proclaimed Stalinist called for the reintroduction of Stalinist state terror in Russia. However, Gavrilov’s personal attitude to this requirement remained unclear.
Source: Krone
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