Now the Winter Olympics are all over and done with and the violent altercations with militia have moved over to Ukraine, there’s not much focus on what is going on with actual Russia right now. Here’s a clue. A female reporter who dared to ask a politician about Ukraine was ordered to be raped.
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic party was so upset by Russia Today journalist Stella Dubovitskaya’s questioning, he said: ‘This is no place for a pregnant woman’ before turning to his aides and commanding them to ‘violently rape her.’
Other journalists jumped to Stella’s defence, saying: ‘She is pregnant, why are you attacking her?’ (although pregnant or not, what he said to her would have been just as offensive).
When Yulia Chuchalova, who works for Russian news agency Interfax asked him why he was using such ‘derogatory’ language, he spat back: ‘Stop interfering here, you lesbian.’ Which is so ridiculous it's almost really funny. You can see how het up he gets over on The Huffington Post’s video of the altercation. Russia Today aren’t laughing, though.
The broadcaster told The Daily Mail: ‘Due to the disgusting incident in the state duma, after which our correspondent was hospitalised because of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s discourtesy, we have decided to use all legal options to punish Mr Zhirinovsky as severely as possible under the law, including by suing him.’
Zhirinovsky has since apologised, in what is the most half-arsed apology we've ever heard. Ever. 'When talking to the press in the Duma on Friday, answering questions at the end, I spoke a bit rudely when I replied to a young woman. I offer my apologies to her and to everyone, if I happened to offend someone.’
Zhirinovsky is notoriously difficult, and known for his rages – he has previously said Britain is ‘the worst enemy of the past few centuries’. So it looks like he definitely won’t be taking us out for a drink any time soon. Shame, that.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.