Fascists called themselves fascists, Nazis called themselves Nazis: Klimkin suggests finding correct definition of Russian regime 

He expressed this opinion in the Verdict with Serhiy Rudenko program on the Espreso TV channel.

He noted that the current Russian regime can be called anything, but it is still necessary to find a correct definition for it.

"Mussolini's fascists once called themselves fascists, and the Nazis called themselves Nazis. This regime will not call itself something like ruscism. Yes, maybe, but we also need to understand for ourselves and the main thing - this is really the main thing - is to explain to others that this regime is revanchist," Klimkin said.

The former minister noted that this regime is ready to commit crimes in order to realize its ideology of revanchism. In his opinion, this is how the Russian regime is moving towards a full dictatorship. As an example, he cited changes to the Russian law on foreign agents.

"They are not appointing so-called foreign agents alone, but now they want to introduce more changes to the law that will actually introduce the definition of a so-called third party. And this means that anyone, even without knowing that someone is designated as a foreign agent, can be convicted and punished for any connection. For reading a post on the Internet, etc. And this is actually a complete purge. This is what happened in classic dictatorships," the former minister said.

Klimkin added that Russia used to be an autocratic state centered on Putin. However, according to him, it is now on the path to dictatorship and is clearing out anyone who says anything the authorities don't like.

"This is a cleansing of reality to fit today's Russian revanchist ideology," he concluded.

• On May 4, Ukrainian MP Oleh Synyutka said that he considered the decision to recognize the Russian ideology as "ruscism" to be significant, as it is a generalized name for all those who support and commit crimes in Ukraine.

• On May 10, the Servant of the People MP said that Ukraine had registered a resolution in PACE to condemn the ideology and practices of ruscism in Europe.