Desperate to get the Biden administration’s warmongering on the right side of history, former Hillary Clinton adviser and current national security advisor Jake Sullivan has claimed that Russia is planning to round up “LGBTQI+ persons” after invading Ukraine, according to a report in the Hill.
“We believe that any military operation . . . the Russians are planning will be extremely violent,” Sullivan told the audience of NBC’s Today show. “It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike.”
Sullivan also claimed to “have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies.”
Sullivan’s spurious claims come one day after the Washington Post reported on a letter sent Sunday night by US Ambassador Bathsheba Nell Crocker to Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, in which Crocker claimed that the Russians were planning human rights atrocities in the aftermath of a Ukraine invasion.
“I would like to bring to your attention disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of a further invasion are being planned,” Crocker wrote.
BREAKING: America has told the United Nations that Russia has created a “kill or capture” list of Ukrainians who will be hunted down post-invasion.
It claims that “LGBTQI+ persons” and others may be put in concentration camps. pic.twitter.com/1p31JF3m3n
— Clint Ehrlich (@ClintEhrlich) February 21, 2022
“These acts . . . would likely target . . . vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” she continued. “Specifically, we have credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, immediately denied the claims.
“Do you realize that this is an absolute canard, a lie?” Peskov said, according to the Post. “It is absolute fiction. There is no such list.”
The smear attack was not the first time Sullivan has spread lies about Russia. During his tenure with Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Sullivan helped perpetuate the baseless innuendo linking rival candidate Donald Trump to Russia, according to a recent court filing by Special Counsel John Durham.
The scandalous report, although widely ignored or dismissed by mainstream media, has led some to call for Sullivan’s resignation or firing.
Republicans also have demanded that any Justice Department officials linked to Clinton’s campaign recuse themselves from the Durham probe. That includes Sullivan’s wife, Maggie, a former law clerk and current counsel to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
