Chechen President: 'We Don't Have Any Gays... Take Them From Us'

President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov made horrific statements in an interview this week, claiming that there are no gay people in Chechyna and if there are to “take them from us” in order “to purify our blood.”

Kadyrov made the statements while speaking to David Scott of HBO's “Real Sports,” and denied claims by international media  that the country is persecuting and executing men who have sex with men. The interview was pegged to a mixed martial arts program also run by the Chechen president .

″This is nonsense,” Kadyrov says to Scott in the above video. "We don’t have those kind of people here. We don’t have any gays. If there are any take them to Canada. Praise be to God. Take them far from us so we don’t have them at home. To purify our blood, if there are any here, take them.”

Chechnya has fallen under international criticism over the past several months following reports that gay and bisexual men were being rounded up in the Russian-controlled public  and forced into “concentration camps.”  Later reports suggested that these individuals were being slaughtered and oftentimes at the hands of their own family members .

In the interview, Kadyrov goes on to say that anyone claiming that Chechnya is massacring gay men “will have to answer to the almighty,” and promises that “even if our government was completely destroyed our nuclear missiles would be automatically deployed. We will put the whole world on its knees and screw it from behind.”

The Russian LGBT network claims to have saved at least 42 victims of the alleged Chechen persecution of men who have sex with men.

A number of international leaders have spoken out about the alleged abuses facing gay and bisexual men in Chechnya and asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to intervene, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel . President Donald Trump , however, has remained silent on the allegations , even with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley saying in April  that these human rights violations “cannot be ignored.”