# Anti-Russian sentiment

Anti-Russian sentiment (or Russophobia) is a dislike or fear of Russia, Russians or Russian culture. Russian nationalists and apologists of Russian politics are sometimes criticised for using allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter any criticism of Russian state policies or practices.

## Quotes

    Sorted alphabetically by author or source
* In the quarter-century since the fall of Communism, we’ve forgotten what a cynical, unprincipled, authoritarian Russian regime looks like, especially one with an audacious global strategy and no qualms whatsoever about sacrificing human life...the living memory of the USSR is now truly fading and the nature of the USSR—its peculiar awfulness, its criminality, its stupidity—is becoming harder and harder to explain.
** Anne Applebaum, ""Russia and the Great Forgetting," Commentary (December 2015).
* We in the West are never allowed to forget the political shortcomings (real and bogus) of the Soviet Union; at the same time we are never reminded of the history which lies behind it. The anti-communist propaganda campaign began even earlier than the military intervention. Before the year 1918 was over, expressions in the vein of "Red Peril", "the Bolshevik assault on civilization", and "menace to world by Reds is seen" had become commonplace in the pages of the New York Times.
** William Blum in Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (2003)
* Historian Frederick Lewis Schuman has written: "The net result of these hearings... was to picture Soviet Russia as a kind of bedlam inhabited by abject slaves completely at the mercy of an organization of homicidal maniacs whose purpose was to destroy all traces of civilization and carry the nation back to barbarism."
** William Blum in Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (2003)
* Brzezinski was seen as not only anti-Soviet, but a “Russophobe” as well. Dobrynin would recall how on the eve of the 1980 US presidential election (in which Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan), Brzezinski tried to convince him that Russians were prejudiced against him because he was Polish. “History provides us with abundant evidence of hostile relations between Russians and Poles,” he told Dobrynin, “and we still haven’t freed ourselves from this tragic past.”
** Zbigniew Brzezinski, quoted in an obituary in openDemocracy ( June 1, 2017).
* In the universe of Russian propaganda, Russia is an ideal state of sorts. International criticism of any Russian actions or misbehaviors is often labeled as Russophobic by the Russian officials, or, on lower levels of the Kremlin propaganda machine, by state-run media or even experts on the talk shows they host. “Russophobia” is a manipulative defensive line, often used by Russian propaganda to reduce any criticism of the Russian state to an irrational intolerance towards the Russian people.
** Euromaiden Press "'Russophobia' as a Russian propaganda tool", (1 October 2018)
* Just as the content of anti-Semitism is defined by Jews, so the question "What is Russophobia?" applies only to Russians. Russophobia is the hatred of Russians because they are Russians, building a policy on hatred of Russians and performing certain actions, even of a violent nature. This is the meaning of the phenomenon. One can - and must! - write it down in detail and give it a legal status, and then everything will be solved.
** Alexander Dugin, "Denazification means complete eradication of Russophobia in Ukraine and elsewhere" (translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini) in Geopolitika.ru (May 10, 2022)
* Nobody will be able to say: no, you have the wrong definition, because Russophobia is first and foremost about Russians, so Russians know best what it is and what it is not. So we need a law on Russophobia, which categorically prohibits it...Let us then take the next step and identify Ukrainian Nazism and Russophobia, that is, let us accuse Ukraine of Russophobia.
** Aleksandr Dugin, "Denazification means complete eradication of Russophobia in Ukraine and elsewhere" (translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini) in Geopolitika.ru (May 10, 2022)
* If we understand denazification as a fight against Russophobia, then there is no need to prove that everyone in Ukraine is a Nazi and that Zelensky is an anti-Semite... Russophobia is almost equally characteristic of the Nazis of the Azov Regiment, the Jew Zelensky or pro-Western liberals. Russophobia is inherent in NATO and the EU, in US neocons and the Biden administration. And because it is, we are forced to respond.
** Aleksandr Dugin, "Denazification means complete eradication of Russophobia in Ukraine and elsewhere" (translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini) in Geopolitika.ru (May 10, 2022)
* The answer is one: Equate Nazism with Russophobia, i.e. make it clear that by Nazism we mean Russophobia (and the ideology of Nazism was decidedly Russophobic), and by denazification - its eradication and then we will accuse Ukraine as a whole, its ruling regime and the Nazis of Azov and other extremist terrorist organisations, which are openly and radically Russophobic both in their words and in their criminal actions, of Russophobia-Nazism, in a completely calm, justified and responsible manner.
** Aleksandr Dugin, "Denazification means complete eradication of Russophobia in Ukraine and elsewhere" (translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini) in Geopolitika.ru (May 10, 2022)
* One of the more interesting aspects of the nauseating impeachment trial in the Senate was the repeated vilification of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin.
** Philip Giraldi in Why Both Republicans and Democrats Want Russia to Become the Enemy of Choice,The Council for the American Interest] (6 Feb 2020)
* While Moscow is depicted as an aggressive adversary, NATO surrounds Russia on three sides, has deployed anti-missile systems in Poland, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and the Black Sea, and has a 12 to 1 advantage in military spending...NATO was a child of the Cold War, when the West believed that the Soviets were a threat. But Russia today is not the Soviet Union, and there’s no way Moscow would be stupid enough to attack a superior military force.
** Conn Hallinan, in It’s Time for NATO to Go the Way of the Warsaw Pact, Foreign Policy In Focus, (27 July 2018)
* Much of the intellectual basis for, and even the specific phraseology of, Russophobia was put forward in Britain in the nineteenth century, growing out of its rivalry with the Russian Empire. Given Britain's own record of imperial aggression and suppression of national revolt (in Ireland, let alone in India or Africa), the argument from the British side was a notable example of the kettle calling the pot black.
** Anatol Lieven "Against Russophobia," in World Policy Journal (January 1, 2001)
* Many contemporary Russophobe references to Russian expansionism are almost word-for-word repetitions of nineteenth-century British propaganda (though many pre-1917 Russians were almost as bad, weeping copious crocodile tears over Britain's defeat of the Boers shortly before Russia itself crushed Polish aspirations for the fourth time in a hundred years).
** Anatol Lieven "Against Russophobia," in World Policy Journal (January 1, 2001)
* I have no illusions or worry about the long-term future of Russia. Russia is now a gas station masquerading as a country.
** John McCain, quoted in Politico (2014).
* But by looking at media today, those of us who are old enough will be reminded of the era of Cold War news articles, hysteria of how the Russians would invade and how we should duck and cover under tables in our kitchens for the ensuing nuclear war.
** Mairead Maguire in "Demonization of Russia in a New Cold War Era, Inventing a foe to sell military ambitions is still the most dangerous of games," Common Dreams (14 September 2018)
* Firstly, I must say, that I personally believe that Russia is not by any means without faults. But the amount of anti-Russian propaganda in our media today is a throwback to the Cold War era...The demonization of Russia is, I believe, one of the most dangerous things that is happening in our world today. The scapegoating of Russia is an inexcusable game that the West is indulging in.
** Mairead Maguire in '"Demonization of Russia in a New Cold War Era, Inventing a foe to sell military ambitions is still the most dangerous of games," Common Dreams (14 September 2018)
* The past year and a half of Russophobia have been driven by the “bitter clingers” of Hillary’s failed national political ambitions, the military-industrial complex, corporate interests, corporate media, the Washington/New York/Hollywood commentariat, and foreign lobbyists. Too many of them profit from an endless state of war—throughout the world and, in particular, with Russia.
** George D. O'Neill Jr in "For Peace With Putin, End America’s Pointless Wars,"" The American Conservative (9 July 2018)
* The Revolution of Dignity and the [2014] war brought about a geopolitical reorientation of Ukrainian society. The proportion of those with positive attitudes toward Russia decreased from 80 percent in January 2014 to under 50 percent in September of the same year...There can be little doubt that the experience of war not only united most Ukrainians but also turned the country’s sympathies westward.
** Serhii Plokhy in The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (2015) (p. 353)
* The Kremlin’s dismembering of Ukraine in 2014 de facto removed millions of the most pro-Russian voters from Ukraine’s electoral rolls. It also turned the tens of millions still living under Kyiv’s authority decisively against Russia. The share of Ukrainians holding a favourable view of Russia sank from 84 per cent in 2010 to a mere third in 2019, according to polling by the Pew Research Center.
** Serhii Plokhy in New Statesman (February 1, 2022)
* Why rave ye, babblers, so -- ye lords of popular wonder?
    Why such anathemas 'gainst Russia do ye thunder?
    What moves your idle rage? Is't Poland's fallen pride?
    'Tis but Slavonic kin among themselves contending,
    An ancient household strife, oft judged but still unending...
   * Aleksandr Pushkin's 1831 poem "To the Slanderers of Russia", a response to French criticism of Russia for the Polish-Russian War (1830–1831).
* The idea that the Russian Federation is the victim — even as it carries out a war of atrocity in Ukraine — is meant to distract from the experience of the real victims, in the real world. Against that backdrop, he rejected Moscow’s assertion that “our hurt feelings count more than other people’s lives”. The claim that Ukrainians are sick with a disease called “Russophobia” is simply a type of colonial rhetoric and part of a larger strategy of hate speech.
** Timothy D. Snyder, quoted in [United Nations press release] (March 14, 2023)
* Throughout the day before the summit in Helsinki, the lead story on the New York Times home page stayed the same: “Just by Meeting With Trump, Putin Comes Out Ahead.” ... The Washington Post...editorialized that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is “an implacably hostile foreign adversary.” ...Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme...
** Norman Solomon in ""...Hostile Propaganda: Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme," Common Dreams (16 July 2018)
* A bellicose stance toward Russia has become so routine and widespread that we might not give it a second thought.
** Norman Solomon in ""...Hostile Propaganda: Contempt for diplomacy with Russia is now extreme," Common Dreams (16 July 2018)
* Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, [historian] Richard Pipes and many other American politicians... are frozen... with unchanging blindness and stubbornness they keep repeating... this theory about the supposed age-old aggressiveness of Russia, without taking into consideration today's reality.
** Interview with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,Forbes magazine (May 1994)
* Liberal Russophobia has become a powerful force responsible for deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations. The coalition of liberal Russophobes include those in Congress, media and think tanks who believe that Russia aims to destroy the U.S.-centered “liberal” international order and that President Donald Trump’s attempts to negotiate with the Kremlin do more harm than good.
** Andrei P. Tsygankov in Playing the Russophobia card, The Washington Times (12 December 2018)

## See Also

* Nineteen Eighty-Four
* Russia
* Vladimir Putin

## External links

* Encyclopedic article on Anti-Russian sentiment on Wikipedia