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Margarita Simonyan

Russian journalist

Margarita Simonovna Simonyan (Russian:Маргарита Симоновна Симоньян; born 6 April 1980) is a Russian journalist. She is the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled media organisations RT (formerly Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya. In 2022, Simonyan was sanctioned by the European Union for "actions and policies which undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine".

Margarita Simonyan in 2017

Quotes

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2013–2016

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  • The West never got over the Cold War stereotype. One thing that only few journalists understand is that Russia started dissolving the Soviet Union of its own accord. We were the ones to realize that Communism was a failure. We understood that it was wrong to impose our will on other nations. We released the Eastern bloc into freedom. We are a different country today, one with a different mentality -- which is something that Western journalists sometimes find difficult to comprehend. You, for example, stated earlier that Russia was acting aggressively without backing it up with facts.
  • Everything you say will be used against you.
  • We are far less critical of western policy than western media are critical of Russia. When was the last time you read anything good about Russia? Anywhere? Name me one publication. That’s why this cliché that Russia Today is an anti-western channel brings a smile to my face.
  • I don’t see why you have the nerve to think that you know better than anyone how to run the world, and who’s marginal in the world and who isn’t. You’ve made so many mistakes, you’ve started so many wars in the last few years, destroyed so many lives, killed so many people, created so many problems.
  • I noticed that mainstream western TV channels, especially CNN and ABC, show the same thing. It really ate me up inside. I realised that there are quite a lot of people in the world who don’t think that’s how it should be, so it probably makes sense to make something for them. Obviously if our audience is [only] Kremlinologists and Russia watchers, then that’s very few people.
  • Actually, I also like America in a lot of ways. I have friends and family there, the food is good, at the end of the day. I really love American culture . . . In the 1990s we looked at America like a saviour. We proudly wore American flag T-shirts and caps. I learnt the Declaration of Independence by heart.
  • Believe me, I’ve categorically forbidden everyone from inviting people who says nonsense or promote some unhealthy strange theories on air. But at the same time, if we only give airtime to the same people as the mainstream media does, it means it wouldn’t at all be clear why we’re doing this.

2021

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  • A war is completely unavoidable.
  • In our time, I don't believe there can be a full-scale hot war like the Second World War, nor a long Cold War, but a war of a third type. It will be a cyberwar.
  • A button is pushed, and suddenly the lights go out in Voronezh. The pipes freeze and there is no heating. Then, from the other side, a button is pushed, and the lights go out in Harlem, or in Florida.
  • It will be a war of infrastructure, and in this sphere, we have many vulnerabilities.
  • We need to be ready for this war, which is inevitable, and which, of course, will start from Ukraine. For this, we need a Stalinist program of mobilization in order to sew up, sew up, sew up these vulnerabilities quickly, quickly. Because I don't want us to be too enamored of our capabilities.
  • So that it is understood, yes, in a hot war, we would defeat Ukraine in two days. What is there to defeat? My god, it's Ukraine. We suppress their firing points, as we discussed during the commercial, and then we won't even have to bomb their unfortunate cities. God forbid that it ever come to that.
  • Why is there this constant talk of war? It's as if [the West] really wants us to destroy this unfortunate Ukraine. In Russia there is no war hysteria. We do have an anti-war movement, but we have no pro-war movement. It's surprising. The Americans say 'no, you must invade. We know it for a fact.'

2022

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  • Mr. Biden, why won't you tell the Russians that Ukraine will never join NATO? That's what they're asking for. Additionally, with high level of probability, it will never be able to join anyway, for various reasons. You understand that it's their [Russia’s] legitimate interest that [Ukraine] does not join, but you're not doing that.
  • You're telling us that you're defending democracy. Mr. Biden, what kind of democracy is it when they are closing down one television channel after another and imprisoning their political opponents, because they can’t hold on to power in any other way?
  • We're fighting a huge, armed enemy. Maybe it's not that simple for Russia to fight all of NATO over there.
  • But also, this is not Ukraine, it's NATO. It's all their power being used against us now. All of their arms, all of their weapons, all of their equipment, all of their trainers, their mercenaries.
  • We should be helping our army and our commander-in-chief to win instead of complaining that they're yet to win in so-and-so days.
  • They [Americans] are like little children, they don't believe anything they don't want to believe, like little children. They're trapped in the world of their own fantasies. Recently, I was re-reading old letters that I sent to my parents when I was studying in America. I wrote to my parents: "I have a feeling that [America] is not a country, but a kindergarten for mentally disabled children." Even at 15, I already understood that.
  • A cynical joke or perhaps an exclamation has appeared, I’ve already heard it from several people in Moscow. "All hope is pinned on famine". What is meant is that famine will begin and they [in the West] will come to their senses, will remove sanctions and will be friends with us because it's impossible to not be friends.
  • Personally, I see the path of a third world war as the most realistic. Knowing us, knowing our leader, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, knowing how things work around here . . . I think that the most improbable outcome—that it will all end in a nuclear strike—is still more probable than defeat. This horrifies me, on the one hand, but on the other I understand that this is how it is.
  • There are nuclear power plants there, a lot of infrastructure which can be disabled … very quickly and easily, and for a long time. People ask me, why don’t we do that? I have no answer. Perhaps now is the time to do this.

2023–present

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  • Our main enemy is certainly the United States. What does the U.S. react to? They react to two things: the threat of physical annihilation and the liquidation of a certain number of military personnel. What we know based on wars in Vietnam and Korea is that several tens of thousands of annihilated American servicemen will cause the public opinion in the U.S. to be severely strained. I will repeat: not several thousand, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, but a certain number of tens of thousands. Who will liquidate them, where they will be liquidated and in what way is completely irrelevant, but this is one of the objectives if we want to influence the American leadership. We have absolutely nothing to lose.
  • This can only end with an immediate threat that is voiced and presented, a threat of a nuclear confrontation.
  • Guys, there will be a big war, for sure. By the end of winter, something very big will happen!
  • It’s true that no one will win in a nuclear war, but who needs the world if Russia isn’t in it? It was voiced out loud, it was said by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin!
  • I don't see any other outcome… It will be a wrecking ball! It will be all-in! It will be like two planes, flying head-on into one another. Someone will have to back down and something tells me that it won’t be us.
  • If Lindsey Graham really said that the money for the killing of Russians is the best money the US ever spent . . . I hope that in our country, the sons or grandchildren of Sudoplatov are alive, his pupils, or the descendants of his pupils [...] It’s not even hard. We have his address.
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