As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – which was only supposed to take a few days – drags into its tenth month, the tone of Kremlin propagandists has become steadily bleaker.
Such is the worry among talking heads on Russian state media, that talk of losing the war and facing justice at The Hague are now being openly discussed.
Speaking on a talk show on Monday evening, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan began a monologue by justifying the continued bombing of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure as “the only thing we can do in this situation.”
Simonyan claimed that “God knows we didn’t want this” and that Russians are “kind, polite and at times meek”.
She then took aim at unnamed members of Russia’s “very high circles” who are “afraid of The Hague”, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice.
“If we manage to lose in Ukraine, The Hague… is waiting even for the janitor who sweeps the pavement behind the Kremlin wall,” Simonyan said.
Instead, she said they should be afraid of “losing, of being humiliated.”
“The scale of the catastrophe that will engulf Russia, if we manage to lose, cannot even be imagined,” she added.
Simonyan is well-known for her outlandish, controversial and often deluded commentary on the invasion of Ukraine.
Posting on social media earlier this month, she wrote: “The day will come when we will once again arrive in hospitable, cheerful, bright and well-fed Kyiv.”
Given that Russians arriving in Ukraine this year have mostly been met with artillery, HIMARS and soldiers whose sole aim it is to drive them out, the day that Simonyan is referring to appears to be quite a long way off.
