On the anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War
Georgy Sinoviev
On the eve of the anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, attempts to falsify its history, denigrate the liberators and whitewash war criminals have intensified. A textbook example of those is the article by Ambassador of Ukraine Dmytro Ponomarenko published on The Korea Times website. Let us set the record straight.
Before World War II the West pursued the “appeasement” policy toward Hitler that aimed to redirect Nazi Germany's aggression eastward — against the Soviet state. The apogee of those efforts was the Munich Conference (1938) and the agreement signed there by the heads of Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, Great Britain and France. It resulted in the division and elimination of Czechoslovakia. An alternative to the "appeasement" could have been a system of collective security that the USSR advocated. However, the West blocked or ignored all its efforts.
For Hitler, Munich became a decisive argument in favor of large-scale aggression in Europe. Great Britain and France signed non-aggression declarations with Germany, opening the way for Nazi assault on the East. The USSR found itself in almost complete international isolation.
Based on its experience, the Soviet Union had few hopes when it came to cooperating with the West: armed intervention in 1918-20, economic blockade, cordon sanitaire policy, military and diplomatic provocations, support for German fascism and Japanese militarism, the Munich betrayal. Moscow was aware that Germany had already completed its preparations to attack Poland. After that, the Germans would have reached the near approaches to Minsk, which would have posed a strategic threat to the USSR and could have ensured the success of the blitzkrieg.
The Soviet-German nonaggression pact of Aug. 23 was not the primary cause of World War II — the attack on Poland would have occurred regardless of the said pact within the timeframe set by Hitler in April 1939, which was "no later than Sept. 1." By mid-August, the German army was fully mobilized and ready for invasion.
For the Soviet leadership, signing the pact was an exceptional measure in exceptional circumstances. Naturally, it did not make the Soviet Union and Germany allies. Nonaggression pacts are not concluded with partners, much less friends. The USSR neither attacked Poland nor waged war against its army, and once the Polish statehood collapsed, it took under its protection the people residing in the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, which Poland had annexed during the 1917-22 Russian Civil War. There was no "joint parade" in Brest. New borderline further to the west and a peaceful respite for almost two years contributed greatly to the failure of the German blitzkrieg in 1941.
Ukraine became a key beneficiary of the USSR's policy of protecting its western borders on the eve of the war with Germany, having received vast territories of Western Ukraine, which it maintained after the collapse of the USSR. We do not hear any words of remorse from those who curse the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" on the subject of the significant expansion of Ukraine's territory. Do be consistent.
Furthermore, it is obviously inappropriate to compare Nazi ideology, widely recognized as criminal, and communism, adherence to which is enshrined in fundamental documents of many modern states. This is not to mention the ethical aspect of attempting to liken an aggressor striving for world domination and a people who paid the highest price to achieve victory over that common enemy. Even the critics of the USSR admitted that the Soviet Union showed exceptional humanism towards prisoners, while the Nazis were noted for their atrocities. Their policies regarding civilians were also diametrically opposed, with Nazi policy towards Soviet people having all the attributes of genocide. Fake stories about “atrocities” of the Soviet Army against civilians of the “occupied” countries are nothing more than rehashed Nazi propaganda materials, which actively used anti-Russian sentiments and ideas of national superiority. In fact, these propaganda methods are widely used against Russia up until now.
Let us recall the obvious fact that Ukraine was a union republic of the USSR. Millions of Ukrainians who heroically fought in the Soviet Red Army did so for their homeland — the Soviet Union. This is also true for Russians, Belarusians and all other nationalities.
However, it cannot be denied that some Ukrainians fought in other armies as well, including the Ukrainian Insurgent Army led by S. Bandera, the inglorious pro-Nazi collaborator now revered by the modern Kiev regime as a national hero. More than 12,000 people served in the 14th SS Infantry Division “Galicia” who perpetrated atrocities against civilians of the USSR and Poland and participated in the mass murder of Jews. The indictment of the Nuremberg Tribunal points to the collective responsibility of the Waffen-SS for committing crimes against humanity. Many units of the Nazi auxiliary security police, formed in Ukraine, were predominantly manned by ethnic Ukrainians. They were responsible for carrying out mass murder orders and were known for sadistic cruelty, including burning alive 149 residents of the Belarusian village of Khatyn. Incidentally, in 2014, their ideological successors burned alive more than 40 people in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa, and none of these neo-Nazis was punished by Kiev regime. This barbaric act — the direct result of the 2014 coup in Kyiv — is still ignored in the West.
The Kyiv regime tries to conceal this inconvenient truth, encouraging neo-Nazi theories and practices such as banning the language of one of its peoples and cultivating national hatred while hailing war criminals convicted by the Nuremberg Tribunal as heroes.
Before the unconstitutional coup in 2014, Ukraine took part in the Victory Day ceremonies on Red Square. After the current Kyiv regime came to power it began to massively demolish monuments to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War and openly honor Nazi criminals.
The claims concerning the Special Military Operation are fakes similar to those spread by Goebbels' propaganda. For correct information I would suggest to check the resources of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in the ROK. Also, I recommend reading the joint article by ambassadors of the seven CIS countries accredited in Seoul on the occasion of the anniversary of victory that was published in the Korean media.
Georgy Zinoviev is the Russian ambassador to Korea. The views expressed here are the writer's own.