Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, Major General Mikhail Drapaty, has said that Russia had “no right” to exist and made derogatory remarks about the residents of Russia’s Donbass region, which Ukraine continues to claim as its own.

On Wednesday, the YouTube documentary channel Ukrainer W released an interview with Drapaty originally recorded in 2023. Speaking to journalist Karina Pilyugina, the general said that he had long anticipated a war with Russia.

“We see that you cannot call them neighbors. It is a nation, together with its leadership, that has no right to exist. Over thousands of years, nothing has changed there in civilizational terms – neither its mentality nor its imperial ambitions,” he said.

The journalist asked Drapaty why people in the largely Russian-speaking Donbass were more likely to help Russian troops than residents of the Kiev region. The general claimed that the Donetsk and Lugansk regions had long been dominated by “settlers and criminal elements.”

“That is why the population there lacks (a Ukrainian national) consciousness. That’s my opinion. It seems that too little attention was paid there to Ukrainization,” he added.

Drapaty went on to claim that “a significant number” of people in Donbass “do not want to work, want handouts, and do not care which country they live in.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the general’s comments as “neo-Nazi.” Moscow has said Ukraine’s language and cultural laws are aimed at erasing the identity of Russian speakers and has listed the treatment of Ukraine’s Russian minority as one of the causes of the ongoing conflict.

Drapaty first rose to prominence during the 2014 campaign to quash the revolt of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which broke away from Ukraine following the Western-backed coup in Kiev. The regions voted to become part of Russia in September 2022.

Drapaty replaced Aleksandr Syrsky as commander-in-chief this week amid a political crisis triggered by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s decision to dismiss Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov. The move sparked protests in Kiev and other cities demanding Fedorov’s reinstatement and Syrsky’s dismissal. Fedorov and Syrsky reportedly clashed over military strategy in the conflict with Russia.