Russian State Duma speaker says the West is ‘genetically’ predisposed to dislike Slavs

Commenting on continued international economic sanctions against Moscow, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told the news agency Interfax on Wednesday that the West is “genetically” predisposed to dislike Slavs.

“It’s already starting to become unreasonable, and we can suspect that those behind these sanctions are in a struggle against Slavs,” Volodin said, describing the West’s “pathological dislike” of Slavs and accusing the West of adopting a “systematic approach” to different peoples. 

“Generally, when we talk about Russophobia, today we can now talk about it in relation to all Slavic peoples,” Volodin said, claiming that anti-Slavic sentiments manifest in multiple ways, not only with sanctions. “Just look at what they’ve done with Ukraine,” the Duma speaker added.

Western countries levied sanctions against the Russian Federation in 2014, following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and Russia’s armed intervention in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions have been extended many times.

The European Union and the U.S. placed economic sanctions on Belarus in the mid-2000s, demanding that Minsk allow fair elections and free its political prisoners.