Top Zelenskyy aide says India, China have ‘low intellectual potential’

Sandeep Dikshit

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New Delhi, September 13

The comments of a top aide to the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskyy about the “low intellectual potential’’ of India and China have kicked up a social media storm.

The person at the centre of the controversy, Mykhailo Podolyak, later attempted damage control by stating that this was “classic Russian propaganda: take it out of context, distort the meaning, scale it up to separate target audiences with conflict provocation.”

According to Podolyak, adviser to Zelensky’s office, “China and India are not able to analyse the consequences of their actions‚ low intellectual potential, unfortunately”.

“Indian Twitter is going to burn!” commented a Russian media house but it was the Chinese who have officially sought an explanation from Ukraine.

“I have no knowledge of the basis for this statement. He should provide clarification and explain himself,” said the official spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the interview, Podolyak went on to say, “Yes they invest in science. India has sent a lander to the Moon, but it doesn’t say that this country understands what the modern world is about. The problem of these countries, India and China, is that they don’t analyse the consequences of their own steps”.

In May, Kyiv had to apologise for celebrating a fire in a Russian gas station by lampooning Goddess Kali as the 50s Hollywood Siren Marlyn Monroe.

Podolyak also called the UN a “money-making office”, and the IAEA, the Red Cross and Amnesty International “fictitious” organisations.

“We will not get them to renounce their own senselessness. In fact, the UN is a completely absent organisation. It is, I would say, a PR office or a lobbying office for making money for a good old age for people who occupy certain leadership positions,” Podolyak said.

“The emotions that the UN evokes will always be negative, like any other international institution – some kind of IAEA, the International Red Cross, Amnesty International, all these are fictitious organizations that pollute our consciousness with absolutely rubbish assessments. If they did not exist, “many issues would probably be resolved better and faster,” he added.