Students at several Russian universities have released a video message in which they call on the United Nations to stop the “aggression” of U.S. President Barack Obama and demand that he be prosecuted for “the thousands of lives he has taken.”
“We urge the United Nations to take immediate action to stop the aggression of the U.S. president, and ask The Hague to investigate the actions of Barack Obama,” the students said in a video appeal to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, posted on YouTube on Thursday.
The video had gathered 35,000 views as of Friday afternoon. The video was first posted in Russian but a version with English subtitles was uploaded later.
The video clip features groups of young people representing a number of higher institutions around Russia including Stavropol State University, Kabardino-Balkarian State University, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Higher School of Economics.
According to the students, the U.S. foreign policy is "the main threat to human civilization."
“We sincerely do not understand why the United States, represented by its president, assumed the role of the world's judge, why the U.S. doesn't bear responsibility for thousands of lives taken from the citizens of Libya, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and other countries, the sovereignty of which the U..S has repeatedly violated,” said Yekaterina Kononenko, the second-year student of Astrakhan State University who uploaded the video.
When contacted on Wednesday, the universities whose students featured in the clip said that they weren't aware of this action and had nothing to do with it.
“We have practically no information, we are trying to get the details from our colleagues at the Nizhny Novgorod campus, as the video was filmed with its logo in the background,” the Higher School of Economics's press service said in the response to The Moscow Times' request.
According to information published on their social network profiles, some of the participants are members of the pro-Kremlin Molodaya Gvardiya youth group.
The spokeswoman for Molodaya Gvardiya Oxana Tkacheva confirmed to The Moscow Times that Kononenko was an active member of Astrakhan's Molodaya Gvardiya, but denied any involvement in the video.
“It was the students' initiative and they arranged everything themselves,” Tkacheva said.
Contact the author at newsreporter@imedia.ru
A Message from The Moscow Times:
Dear readers,
We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."
These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.
We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.
Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.
By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.
Remind me later.
