Margarita Simonyan says Ukraine’s secret police has made up lies by claiming she called for the “deaths of children” in an attempt to justify plots to assassinate her
Margarita Simonyan.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has come up with fresh outlandish allegations in order to justify assassination plots against RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, she said on Monday.
Kiev’s successor to the Soviet KGB has announced new criminal charges against Simonyan, accusing her of being a “propagandist” who is furthering “Russian narratives” and endangering Ukrainian sovereignty.
The agency also claims that Simonyan called for “mass killings of Ukrainian children” in December 2023. However, it failed to provide evidence of any relevant remarks.
“They are doing this because they are preparing to assassinate me – and not for the first time,” Simonyan told reporters, reacting to the announcement. “They’ve tried twice before, it was all over the news; now they’re preparing again.”
In an earlier post on social media, she explained that the Ukrainians would have a hard time justifying the murder of a journalist and a mother of several children, but by falsely accusing her of inciting violence, assassinating her would “appear more palatable”.
“I’m a public person, I run my own social media. Everyone who knows me understands that I never called – and never could call – for killing Ukrainian children,” Simonyan told reporters.
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A Ukrainian court issued a warrant for Simonyan’s arrest in March 2022. Last July, Russian law enforcement reported thwarting a Ukrainian plot to assassinate her, involving a group of Russian neo-Nazis who were offered $16,600 as payment.
Last week, SBU head Vasily Malyuk was asked about several high-profile killings and attempted assassinations against purported enemies of Ukraine inside Russia. While saying that Ukraine “will not acknowledge them in any way,” Malyuk proceeded to offer some details about the attacks.
Simonyan’s initial reaction to the SBU announcement was to joke that Ukraine was trying to limit her travel opportunities.
“They want to block my ability to travel around the world, believing that I will suffer from this. They think that everyone who supports [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not leave the French Riviera. I’ve got bad news for them – the only riviera which I would be upset about not being able to visit is my native Krasnodar Region,” the RT editor-in-chief wrote on her Telegram channel.