Earlier today, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a former spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church, endorsed a policy of killing Russia's internal enemies.

“In the end, what's so bad about destroying certain parts of [Russia's] internal enemies?” Chaplin said on the radio station Echo of Moscow. He then clarified that he was indeed discussing the “physical destruction” of Russia's enemies at home. “Of course physical elimination,” he said. “There are some people you can and must kill. It's no coincidence that they destroy criminals.”

Told that Russia suspended the death penalty in 1996, Chaplin answered, “It's no fact that this was the right decision.”

“For the edification of societies, sometimes it's necessary to destroy some number of those who deserve to be destroyed,” Chaplin concluded, citing the Bible and specifically the Book of Revelations.