Putin's peace talks negotiator claimed Russians have extra chromosome
Vladimir Putin's chief delegate at peace talks with Ukraine is a historian who once claimed that Russians have an extra chromosome due to their superiority.
Having refused to attend the negotiations himself or even to send any of his senior officials, Putin has sent a low-level delegation to peace talks in Istanbul led by Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's former culture minister.
Mr Medinsky's presence at the head of a Russian team lacking any Kremlin heavyweights has earned derision from Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, who called the delegation 'decorative' and argued that it was evidence of Putin's insincerity.
The historian also led Russian negotiators during fruitless talks in 2022 and adopted such a hardline position by demanding Ukraine's capitulation, disarmament and future neutrality that the negotiations promptly collapsed.
With Donald Trump, the US president, dismissing the likelihood of any breakthrough in Istanbul until he has met with Putin, Mr Medinsky and his team, drawn from Russia's diplomatic corps and military intelligence, seem to be in Istanbul largely as placeholders.
But Mr Medinsky can also be trusted not to deviate from the script.
An ultranationalist populist historian, he is alleged to have ghostwritten a number of the Russian president's 'academic' articles, including his famous essay of 2021 that provided the rationale for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine the following year. It questioned Ukraine's right to exist as a separate entity, arguing that Ukrainians and Russians were one people and that the US had turned Ukraine into an anti-Russia.
He also co-authored a history textbook now in use in all Russian schools that claimed Ukraine was an 'ultranationalist state' where 'opposition is forbidden' and that the West had used it as a 'battering ram' to destroy Russia.
The book also presents Joseph Stalin as a wise leader who improved the lives of ordinary people and justified the deaths of the millions of Russians and Ukrainians who fell foul of him, saying they got what was coming to them for their lack of patriotism.
Mr Medinsky also earned widespread ridicule after arguing that Russians were particularly heroic and able to survive hardship because they 'have one extra chromosome'. While it is likely that he was attempting to speak figuratively, the assertion, made in 2012, prompted scorn even within Russia, with critics pointing out that having an extra chromosome is associated less with genetic superiority than with conditions such as Down's syndrome.
A former advertising mogul who reportedly lobbied on behalf of the tobacco and casino industries, Mr Medinsky caught Putin's eye with a series of popular histories that exonerated Russia for everything bad that had happened in its history, choosing to blame outsiders instead. Putin rewarded him by making him culture minister in 2012, despite Mr Medinsky's self-confessed loathing of art.
He is not a professional historian and has defended himself from the criticism of academics, writing in one of his books: 'Facts don't matter very much. Everything begins not with facts, but with interpretations. If you love your homeland, your people, then the story you write will always be positive.'
Claims that Mr Medinsky ghostwrote some of Putin's texts were made by Mikhail Zygar, the former editor-in-chief of the now exiled Russian television station TV Rain, who was a student of his at the Moscow Institute of International Relations.
'From the shadows, [Medinsky] has helped construct the ideological and historical edifice on which much of Mr Putin's rule rests,' Mr Zygar wrote in a piece for the New York Times in 2023.
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New details continue to emerge about Ukraine's unprecedented covert drone attacks on multiple Russian air bases, but the full scale and scope of the resulting losses remain unclear. It is the latest global event to put a spotlight on an already fierce debate about whether the U.S. military should be investing in more hardened aircraft shelters and other new fortified infrastructure at bases abroad and at home, something TWZ has been following closely. What we just saw in Russia is a nightmare scenario that we have already been sounding the alarm on for years now, which broadly underscores the growing threats posed by drones. Readers can first get up to speed on what is known about the attacks, which were focused on trying to neutralize Russian strategic bombers that are regularly used to conduct cruise missile attacks on Ukraine, in our latest reporting here. 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Molotov cocktail attack part of surge in antisemitic violence; 'community is terrified'
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A man — identified by law enforcement as Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, an Egyptian citizen who had overstayed his tourist visa — used a 'makeshift flamethrower' to attack demonstrators marching peacefully in a weekly event supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza. According to an FBI affidavit, the attacker yelled 'Free Palestine!' — the same cry uttered by the suspect in a May 21 incident in which two Israeli Embassy aides were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. The back-to-back attacks have unnerved many Jewish Americans — particularly as they come just a month after a man set fire to the residence of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish. A suspect later said the fire was a response to Shapiro's stance on Israel's war on Gaza. 'We are in a completely new era for antisemitic violence in the United States,' said Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino. 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The attacks in the U.S. come as United Nations officials and aid groups warn that the situation in Gaza has become increasingly dire, with Palestinians in Gaza on the brink of famine as Israel continues its 19-month military offensive against Hamas militants. Two weeks ago, Israel agreed to pause a nearly three-month blockade and allow a 'basic quantity' of food into Gaza to avert a 'hunger crisis' and prevent mass starvation. On Sunday, Gaza health officials and witnesses said more than 30 people were reported killed and 170 wounded as Palestinians flocked to an aid distribution center in southern Gaza, hoping to obtain food. The circumstances were disputed. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on crowds about 1,000 yards from an aid site run by a U.S.-backed foundation, but Israel's military denied its forces fired at civilians. Levin attributed the rise in violence in the U.S. to a number of factors, including the Israel-Hamas war and the "increasingly unregulated freewheeling online environment." Horrifying imagery coming out of the Middle East, Levin said, was amplified on social media by those who ascribed responsibility to anyone who believes Israel has a right to exist, or is Jewish, or wanted hostages to be released. 'What happens is angry and unstable people not only find a home for their aggression, but a honed amplification and direction to it that is polished by this cesspool of conspiracism and antisemitism," Levin said. In Los Angeles' Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the mood was subdued Monday as a smattering of Orthodox families made their way to services to observe Shavuot. Many kosher establishments were closed and armed guards flanked entrances to larger Jewish centers and temples. On Pico Boulevard, a 25-year-old Orthodox man carried a prayer shawl close to his chest as he headed to a service at a temple just before noon. He had slept just a few hours after staying up all night reading the Torah. Despite the news of the attack in Colorado, the man — who identified himself as Laser — carried an easy smile. "It's a joyous holiday," he said. The Colorado attack was horrifying, he said, but it was not anything new and paled in comparison with the feeling that descended on the Jewish community in Los Angeles and across the world after Oct. 7. "It's never good to see or read about those types of things," he said. "We just pray for the ultimate redemption, for peace here, peace abroad, peace around the world." At Tiferet Teman Synagogue, a man standing at the door repeatedly apologized to a Times reporter, saying that he would not discuss the event that happened in Colorado. "I'm not going to invite politics into the community," he said. "God bless you all." Others observing the holiday declined to have their photo taken and many of the businesses were closed. A quiet buzz pervaded Pico Boulevard as Orthodox members of the community made their way to services, many of them trying their best to avoid eye contact. A Persian Jewish man from Iran said he has always been hesitant about religious violence. The man, who declined to give his name, was on his way to service. "You always have to keep your eyes open," he said. "No matter where you are in the world." Noa Tishby, an Israeli-born author who lives in L.A. and is Israel's former special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization, said that many Jewish people were afraid to congregate. 'The Jewish community feels under siege,' she said. "People are removing their mezuzahs from their doorsteps. They're removing Jewish insignia from themselves, removing their Star of David or hiding it. They're afraid to go to Jewish events.' Tishby said that the Colorado attacker appeared to be motivated by antisemitism: the views and beliefs of the victims didn't matter. 'What if that particular woman that man tried to burn alive yesterday, what if she was a Bibi hater, would that appease him?' Tishby asked, using a nickname for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 'The answer is no. He doesn't know what her political opinions are in America or in Israel. He just burned her because she was Jewish.' Antisemitism, Tishby argued, was a shape-shifting conspiracy theory that had evolved into anti-Zionism. 'What happened is that the word Zionist is now a code name for Jew,' she said. 'We have been warning for decades that anti-Zionism is the new face of antisemitism…. They're taking all the hate, everything that's wrong in the world right now, and they're pinning it on the Jewish state.' L.A. Mayor Karen Bass was quick to denounce the attack Sunday as 'an atrocious affront to the very fabric of our society and our beliefs here in Los Angeles.' In a statement, she said she would call an emergency meeting at City Hall addressing safety and security across the city immediately after Shavuot. 'LAPD is conducting extra patrols at houses of worship and community centers throughout LA. Anti-Semitism will not be tolerated in this city,' she said. After speaking to Bass on Sunday, Farkas said that he planned to meet in person with the mayor on Wednesday after the Shavuot holiday to have a 'real, frank conversation' about antisemitism. "There is a cycle that we go through where our hearts are shattered and yet we have to keep enduring," Farkas said. "And it makes us call into question the commitment of our wider community and our government to the safety of the Jewish community.' The Associated Press contributed to this report. Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, in your inbox twice per week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
