Liberal Russian journalist Yulia Latynina, a columnist for liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, during the 31 July 2021 broadcast of her weekly show (“Access Code”) on the nominally liberal radio station Echo of Moscow:
I want to tell the Lithuanians that it is really quite simple to combat illegal migrants. You just need to put every illegal violator who has crossed the border, not in prison, for God’s sake, just in some place surrounded by a fence, give him a loaf of bread and two liters of water, and put each additional [violator] there as well. When the number of detainees exceeds ten people per square meter, and the amount of food in the form of bread and water remains the same, then everyone who cannot remember where they came from and what their names are – all these wonderful people will immediately voice the desire to return to their homeland. And new ones will mysteriously stop coming.
Is this hateful ranting typical for Novaya Gazeta? It was the newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya?
No, it’s not typical of Novaya Gazeta as a whole, but Yulia Latynina is not the only columnist or reporter there who has engaged in such hateful idiocy. And yes, it was the newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya worked. It still has lots of other good journalists, but there has never been any visible pushback there against Latynina and her ilk.