MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/. Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) deputy Alexey Goncharenko (included in Russia’s list of terrorists and extremists) called Vladimir Zelensky a "cannibal" over his intention to bring back Ukrainians who left the country and later send them to the battlefield.

"They (meaning Zelensky’s entourage — TASS) really liked this unlimited power, Zelensky first of all. Just listen to the rhetoric: we will force, we will take, we will take them from there, move them here. Where is that guy who seven years ago said he was for the people, that he loves people? <…> It turned out he is just a cannibal. Everything must be taken, everyone punished, forced, bent, made to comply," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian YouTube channel Fabrika Novostey.

Earlier, speaking at a press conference in Berlin, Zelensky supported German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s statement that German authorities would assist in returning Ukrainian men of conscription age so they could be sent to the front. He also said that the Ukrainian armed forces are expecting those who left the country to come back.