Putin Calls Kirk Assassination “A Disgusting Atrocity”: Criticizes US Violence

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin con­demned the assas­si­na­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Char­lie Kirk on Thurs­day, call­ing last mon­th’s shoot­ing in Utah a “dis­gust­ing atroc­i­ty.” “You know, this dis­gust­ing atroc­i­ty, and even more so, live,” Putin said at a forum held by the Val­dai Dis­cus­sion Club in Sochi, Rus­sia. “In fact, we all saw it, but I don’t know, that’s real­ly dis­gust­ing. It looked hor­ri­ble.” “I first of all, of course, offer my con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly of Mr. Kirk and all his loved ones,” the Russ­ian leader con­tin­ued. “We sym­pa­thize and empathize, espe­cial­ly since he defend­ed those tra­di­tion­al val­ues.” He added that the fatal shoot­ing is a sign of a “deep rift in soci­ety,” accord­ing to Reuters.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/international/5536575-putin-charlie-kirk-assassination-remarks/

Key Points

• Putin offered con­do­lences to Char­lie Kirk’s fam­i­ly and described the Sep­tem­ber shoot­ing at Utah Val­ley Uni­ver­si­ty as a dis­gust­ing atrocity.
• The Russ­ian leader stat­ed that Kirk’s assas­si­na­tion reflects a deep rift in Amer­i­can soci­ety and ris­ing con­cerns about polit­i­cal violence.
• Putin crit­i­cized Pres­i­dent Trump’s char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Rus­sia as a paper tiger, argu­ing that Rus­sia has been fight­ing NATO effec­tive­ly in Ukraine.
• The Russ­ian pres­i­dent warned that U.S. deliv­ery of long-range mis­siles to Kyiv could endan­ger the U.S.-Russia rela­tion­ship going forward.

Charlie Kirk and Russian Leadership of The Global National Conservative Alliance

The assas­si­na­tion of Char­lie Kirk in Sep­tem­ber 2025 dra­mat­i­cal­ly illus­trat­ed the transna­tion­al nature of the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance and the promi­nent role Kirk had devel­oped as a con­nec­tor between Amer­i­can and inter­na­tion­al right-wing move­ments. Kirk’s death prompt­ed imme­di­ate respons­es from GNCA-aligned lead­ers across Europe, with Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán claim­ing Kirk was killed as “the result of the inter­na­tion­al hate cam­paign waged by the pro­gres­sive-lib­er­al left.” Euro­pean far-right lead­ers from Ger­many’s AfD, France’s Nation­al Ral­ly, and oth­er GNCA-affil­i­at­ed par­ties demand­ed a moment of silence in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and char­ac­ter­ized Kirk as a mar­tyr to free speech. The Wash­ing­ton Post report­ed that Kirk had forged sig­nif­i­cant con­nec­tions between Trump’s MAGA move­ment and nation­al­ist, pop­ulist coun­ter­parts across Europe, Israel, Asia, and Africa, under­scor­ing his expand­ing pro­file as a bridge fig­ure with­in the glob­al right.

Kirk’s evo­lu­tion from lib­er­tar­i­an youth activist to a promi­nent ampli­fi­er of Nation­al Con­ser­vatism posi­tioned him as a key node in the GNCA net­work, mak­ing his assas­si­na­tion a flash­point that both Chi­na and Rus­sia sought to exploit through dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns designed to inflame Amer­i­can polit­i­cal divi­sions. Krem­lin-linked offi­cials imme­di­ate­ly weaponized Kirk’s assas­si­na­tion to attack Ukraine and deep­en U.S. polit­i­cal divi­sions, with for­mer Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Dmit­ry Medvedev link­ing the mur­der to sup­port­ers of Kyiv, demon­strat­ing how Russ­ian influ­ence oper­ates through cul­tur­al and ide­o­log­i­cal chan­nels with­in the broad­er GNCA ecosystem.

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin has long sought to posi­tion Rus­sia as the ide­o­log­i­cal cen­ter of this alliance, employ­ing cul­ture war themes to appeal to West­ern right-wing audi­ences. Through speech­es at venues such as the Val­dai Dis­cus­sion Club, Putin has pro­mot­ed nar­ra­tives that attack West­ern lib­er­al­ism while cham­pi­oning tra­di­tion­al val­ues, attempt­ing to estab­lish Rus­sia as the moral leader of glob­al con­ser­vatism. The Euro­pean Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions has doc­u­ment­ed how Putin posi­tions him­self as a fig­ure­head for an infor­mal inter­na­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive alliance by adopt­ing far-right trends from the West he crit­i­cizes, pro­mot­ing nar­ra­tives about “tra­di­tion­al val­ues” that dif­fer­en­ti­ate Rus­sia from what he calls the “satan­ic West.“Despite Putin’s aspi­ra­tions for ide­o­log­i­cal lead­er­ship, Rus­si­a’s war in Ukraine has erod­ed its stand­ing with­in the move­ment, allow­ing Hun­gary under Orbán to emerge as the prac­ti­cal hub con­nect­ing Euro­pean and Amer­i­can conservatives.

Exter­nal References:
— Con­ser­vatism by decree: Putin as a fig­ure­head for the glob­al far-right — Euro­pean Coun­cil on For­eign Relations
— Char­lie Kirk mourned by a glob­al right he influ­enced — The Wash­ing­ton Post
— Hun­gary inspires U.S. con­ser­v­a­tives. Its leader is seen as run­ning a ‘dic­ta­tor­ship’ — NPR

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