28.01 Russia Mulls Jailing WWII Revisionists After Scandalous Poll

MOSCOW, January 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian legislators threatened to criminalize World War II revisionism after being outraged by an online survey that asked if Leningrad should have surrendered to the Nazis.

The poll appeared on Sunday on the website of the liberal online television channel Dozhd (“Rain”).

It was taken down within minutes, but still sparked a vehement backlash.

“Such actions should always be treated as a crime of restoring Nazism,” ultraconservative lawmaker Irina Yarovaya of the ruling United Russia party said Monday.

The populist Liberal Democratic Party will draft a bill to criminalize “insulting and desecrating the memory of the Great Patriotic War,” party member Igor Lebedev said Monday, using the Russian name for World War II.