It was like a concentration camp and I have bad memories because it was the first time I saw human beings lose everything, even dignity [...]. Thank God no one tried to hit me or put me down, there was no sexual violence towards me because our group stayed together, we made business with nobody and just tried to survive. I knew I never wanted to go back.
Moldovan and Italian writer
Nicolai Lilin (born 12 February, 1980) is an Italian-Moldovan writer. His first novel, Siberian Education, was adapted into a 2013 film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. He has since attracted attention for spreading Russian propaganda throughout the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
Nikolai Verzhbitsky
•
Nikolai Yurievich Verzhbitsky
From Wikidata (CC0)
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Lo sviluppo è qui, la Russia sta crescendo e l’Europa ha tutto l’interesse a fare un patto con loro, liberandosi dal giogo delle multinazionali private americane. Io parlo da cittadino italiano, da patriota italiano. La nostra economia, quella vera, non ha bisogno di questo sistema ormai al fallimento. Deve liberarsi dalla morsa americana e di Bruxelles.
I live a fairly peaceful life compared to many others, but I have the support of the army and the police. I walk around with my gun. And I have weapons at home. But it's not true, as has been written, that I sleep with a gun. I sleep with my daughter. However, I prefer not to delve into the matter further.
From an interview with Andrea Indini (19 October 2020), "Coronavirus, Nicolai Lilin: 'Così hanno generato il terrore nel popolo'", Ilgiornale.it
[...] si è mai visto la Russia fare guerre coloniali o per allargare il proprio territorio? [...] I russi non vogliono invadere nessuno. L’unica cosa per cui sono capaci di fare la guerra è per assicurare la sicurezza sui propri confini. Per questo motivo Putin ha mosso l’esercito in Ucraina, perché dal 1998 in Ucraina si svolgono attività militari della NATO che minacciano i confini della Russia. È un’idiozia dire che Putin vuole invadere Polonia e Paesi Baltici. Putin vuole stare tranquillo, non vuole avere la pistola puntata in faccia dalla NATO.
Russia encompasses one sixth of the Earth's surface. An act of castration has been put in place against the Olympics, because the Olympic Games without Russia will be a joke. What's more, they will be a slap in the face to democracy, pluralism and the unity of all the peoples who find themselves in the Olympic spirit. [...] This is a pretext to make Russia appear as a rogue state in front of the entire civilized world, reawakening the ghosts of the Cold War. It is a way to humiliate Russia and its citizens. Among other things, I still do not understand on what tangible evidence this nonsense is based. To me it seems like an agenda, the arguments seem weak and we have not yet seen incontrovertible proof.
From an interview with Riccardo Canaletti (24 November 2022), "Nicolai Lilin: 'L'Ucraina? Un Paese nazista peggio della Russia. Ne ho parlato dopo una fake news di Saviano'", Mowmag.com
From an interview with Alfonso Raimo (2 May 2024), "'Putin ha le sue ragioni, gli oligarchi filoatlantisti sostengono il nazismo ucraino'. Cronache dal mondo di Nicolai Lilin, candidato di Santoro", Huffingtonpost.it
Il mio unico impegno è bloccare ogni tipo di sostegno alla guerra. Non ho altro interessi politici. Non sono mai stato interessato seriamente a nessun tipo di programma politico.
In Russia non esiste, e non ci sarà mai, un governo democratico. Solo una dittatura può riuscire a gestire un territorio simile e tutte le popolazioni che lo abitano.
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One time, I found a kidnapped boy of 10 or 12, really dirty, really scared [...]. I preferred to see dead people. Alive was more terrible, because their condition was like dead. All those people who stayed a year or more in the terrorist camps had psychological troubles for the rest of their lives. He slept on my arm and our doctor told me to keep holding him, because he was nervous, he needed to feel my body to sleep. When I saw Salvatores' film, with the kidnapped boy, it was like reality for me. I told my manager, "he can make the film because he doesn’t care about money or public opinion [or even recreating] things in a perfect historical way, he cares about the true story inside the person".