Russia's Ukraine Toilet Smear Backfires

A remark by a Russian governor criticizing gender-neutral toilets in Ukraine backfired when a fellow official reminded him of a problem with Russia's infrastructure.

In a post on Telegram, St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov claimed on January 13 that Russian troops have seen gender-neutral bathrooms in Ukrainian schools and so they "understand very well what [Russia] is fighting for."

"There's no need to explain what values we're defending to these guys who, instead of two bathrooms in schools (one for girls and one for boys), have seen three bathrooms: one for girls, one for boys, and one for gender-neutral people," Beglov wrote, saying that he had visited wounded Russian soldiers in hospitals and spoken about the issue.

"My soul thawed in this communication, where you are understood perfectly. It is easiest to talk with fighters about political topics," Beglov said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that "denazifying" Ukraine and its leadership was justification for launching his "special military operation" in the country in February 2022.

Boris Vishnevsky, a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, responded to Beglov's remarks, saying in a Telegram post that "a quarter of Russians do not have centralized sewerage," citing data from Rosstat, Russia's state statistics service.

"And basically, it is hard to imagine something more gender-neutral than a backyard 'latrine'-style toilet," he added.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

Putin also appeared to weigh in on the issue during a meeting with municipal officials on Tuesday, suggesting that Russians who move abroad want to return home because of gender-neutral toilets in other countries.

"You know, shared toilets for boys and girls and other things like that. This has become an everyday, ordinary phenomenon," the Russian president said.

"And those who left Russia for various reasons, many of them are now returning or are thinking about returning. It's very difficult to live in such conditions for people with traditional, normal, human values."

During the same meeting, Putin said Russia was unwilling to give up territory in Ukraine that had been "conquered," in an apparent slip-up in language over the reasons for invading the country.

"As for this negotiation process, it is an attempt to encourage us to abandon our conquests from the past year and a half," Putin said. "This is impossible. Everyone understands that this is impossible; these ruling circles in Ukraine understand this, and the Western elites understand this."

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