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Russian state-run TV: Hang Ukrainian leaders who pose threat to country

Pundits float death penalty as solution to quash Ukrainian resistance during discussion on Russian state TV channel.

By World Israel News Staff

A Russian pundit speaking on a state-run TV channel said that Russia could use military tribunals and execution by hanging to eliminate Ukrainian leaders who pose a threat to Russia.

During a discussion on Russia-1, the unnamed pundit said that Moscow should consider the death penalty to squash resistacne once the country gains complete control over Ukraine.

“I would restore the death penalty by hanging through military tribunal,” the Russian-speaking pundit reportedly said in a quote translated by Newsweek.

“There are people in Ukraine who threaten Russian citizens and create a threat for us. … In my view, this is of utmost importance.”

Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis said that other pundits on the program agreed with those sentiments. One noted that the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) have constitutions that permit the death penalty.

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Later in the broadcast, Davis said, another pundit warned that Russia must take decisive actions to establish control in Ukraine, even if it means engaging in actions that are difficult from a humanitarian perspective.

“Never let morality prevent you from undertaking correct actions,” Davis translated the pundit as saying. “I understand the importance of a humanitarian component… but morality shouldn’t get in the way.”

Earlier in March, an unnamed European security official told Bloomberg that Moscow’s Federal Security Services had developed plans for public executions of Ukrainian officials who refused to surrender to Russia.

“The agency is also planning violent crowd control and repressive detention of protest organizers in order to break Ukrainian morale,” read the Bloomberg report.

Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said on Sunday that the democratically elected mayors of the cities of Mariupol and Dniprorudne were kidnapped by Russian forces.