Biden in Ukraine: War, Trials, and Remembrance
Honesty is the only policy. Bullying will always fail.
After seven years at the helm, Vladimir Putin had had it. Addressing the annual Munich Security Conference in February 2007, he essentially asked for honesty in international relations. Sitting in front of him in the first row were Robert Gates, John McCain, and Joe Lieberman.
Fifteen years have gone by. Nothing's changed.
Orgy
This is Maria Zakharova's team. She leaves Psaki in the dust. Considering this is a transcript of a live presser Q&A, that's pretty good. Heartfelt.
Question: What can Russia do or has already done to set off the effect of the information war that is being zealously waged against it?
Maria Zakharova: There are some natural disasters that we can foresee and take measures to protect ourselves from. And there are those that all we can do is wait for them to be over and try to survive. The problem is not with us or with our position. The information war unleashed by the West is fatal to it. They are killing their media and the ability of their countries and people for critical thought. They are killing democracy because if it is based on the media of propaganda and does not allow for opinions, it is not a democracy and it cannot be lasting.
The Western world has opted for this type of [political] setup - one without an alternative - as its priority. They ruled out the possibility of making adjustments to democracy or gaining a new perspective on it. Pure democracy as it is. If they black out media, block internet platforms, engage in information manipulation and give money to support chosen media outlets in other countries, they can forget about democracy. If there is no alternative to their political system - for decades, people have been taught to give their lives for democracy - everything is doomed.
I do not want to assert this but we are seeing manifestations of these phenomena. We will continue to provide information, refute fake news and respond, whenever we have an opportunity to protect ourselves and our media with retaliatory measures. We will draw yet another conclusion. We will do everything we can. The orgy going on right now must scare those who started it.
Denazification
Question: Could you specify what Russia means by the term "denazification"? You have repeatedly referred to the Ukrainian leaders as Nazis and a "nationalist regime". What does "denazification" mean in this context? Is it changing who is in power or renouncing a kind of rhetoric?
Maria Zakharova: People who profess Nazi logic may be described in theoretical or in practical terms. Much has been written about them in theory.
In practical terms: They took part in combat units that are distinguished by the logos of battalions from World War II or the Great Patriotic War as we call it here. People who collaborated with the Third Reich, including on occupied territories, were turned into national heroes. An atmosphere was created that made it impossible for people of different ethnic origins and religious beliefs to coexist, as they were persecuted for these characteristics. Many of them were okay on their own but the problem emerged in combination. This was not even considered abnormal or an excess. It was the policy of the state. That’s how it was in everyday life.
People with barbaric logic may be found in any society. Like the vandals who desecrate monuments (either out of stupidity or conviction). They are denounced, persecuted and punished. They are condemned for what they do by society in terms of public morality and also by the state in terms of law. There are laws against such behaviour. Public opinion is strongly against this. The same position is held by different government institutions, executive and legislative authorities and civil society. This issue is subject to regulation. Any individual or collective action by neo-Nazis is stopped. When they desecrate a monument, local communities, municipalities and deputies pay close attention. They restore the monument while law enforcement finds the criminals and punishes them. Children are told that this is not the way to go, and newspapers write that it is an isolated example that brings shame on society.
In Ukraine the picture is the reverse. These are not isolated examples. There are thousands of them. They are not criticised in public. Sometimes, an approach based on historical reconciliation is taken. Why don’t they sit at the same table and make friends? (The veterans who fought against the Nazis and those who were on the side of the Galicia division.) There is an all-or-nothing policy – either ban everything (both the red star and Nazi logos) or allow everything. How come? This is like making peace between Hannibal and his victim. Why not put them in the same room? After all, they are both homo sapiens and will find a common language. Let’s go away and see whether one of them will eat the other. This is the same logic. The ground was prepared at government level for not putting a stop to it. These nationalist movements were a convenient instrument for achieving their political aims.
President of Russia Vladimir Putin said what to do about all this on February 24 of this year. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other Russian officials explained in detail the essence of denazification as one of the goals of the special military operation in Ukraine. Its goal is to eradicate Nazism and fascism that made a comeback in Ukraine over seven decades after World War II. They were there. We know. See the film "Ordinary Fascism." In the past, if this existed, it was driven into a corner or completely rooted out. Whatever some people had in their minds was pushed far back without the possibility of it spilling out. This was Soviet policy towards fascism – zero tolerance, to use the current expression. There was no tolerance of any neo-Nazi manifestations. It was inconceivable.
But they supported all the collaborators and accomplices like the grandfather of Chrystia Freeland, who published a Nazi journal in Poland. He was given a job, food and accommodation. They periodically used him for their internal purposes and later in the anti-Soviet and anti-Russian struggle.
Despite our detailed explanations, some Western media are trying to distort the meaning of denazification. The day before yesterday, one French television channel interpreted denazification as the intention to fragment, divide and destroy the Ukrainian nation. They took the word "Nazism" at the root of the word and interpreted it to mean a nationality, a nation. This is the level of Western propaganda. A sophisticated distortion. This substitution of "Nazism" for "nation" is highly indicative of Western propagandists. For the past eight years, they either shut their eyes to what was happening or openly encouraged Nazi trends in Ukraine, calling them a "movement for liberation" or a manifestation of "cultural identity." True, this "cultural identity" emerged there on such a scale during World War II. Previously, if it existed it was manifest in civil confrontation and internal conflicts, including political intolerance. The misanthropic logic never existed. People were fighting, there was a civil war but it was about different classes and social positions. It had nothing to do with one nation’s superiority over others and, as a consequence, not having equal rights.
We would like to point out that since 2014, when the national radicals took power in the country after the unconstitutional coup d’etat, they began to glorify those who collaborated with Nazi Germany. These were members of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN-UPA), which openly killed Russians, Poles, Jews, Gypsies, people of other ethnicities and "objectionable" Ukrainians during World War II.
"A torchlight procession is not a carnival with flashlights."
During the past eight years, the atrocities of the OUN-UPA fighters, who killed thousands of civilians, were presented as "the struggle for freedom." Streets and stadiums were named in honour of Hitler’s accomplices – Bandera and Shukhevich. We talked about this issue almost every day. Nazi formations – the Right Sector, S14, Trizub, Azov, Donbass and Aidar, to name a few, were operating in the open in Ukraine. Torchlight processions were held. A torchlight procession is not a carnival with flashlights. It is a Nazi-oriented march with relevant symbols, greetings and stylistic features. However, not everyone in Europe realises this. Some of those units were incorporated in the Ukrainian armed forces and sent to Donbass as a combat cell. They looted, raped and killed. They are responsible for civilian deaths.
Denazification is a historical term. We didn’t invent it. I will cite several examples to show that the world already faced it in the past so that Western journalists stop saying they hear this for the first time. Don’t mix things up. Take denazification of Germany and Austria after World War II. After the war, the victorious Allied powers established the Allied Control Council. One of the goals of Germany’s occupation by these powers, by which the council was to be guided, was "to destroy the National Socialist Party and its affiliated and supervised organisations, to dissolve all Nazi institutions, to ensure that they are not revived in any form, and to prevent all Nazi and militarist activity or propaganda." (Report about the tripartite Berlin/Potsdam Conference, August 2, 1945, item 3 of section A - Political Principles of Section 3 on Germany). To reach these objectives, the Council adopted Law No. 10 and Law No. 4, which determined a number of individuals subject to denazification and provided for the creation of special judicial bodies to review their cases.
The Council issued Directive No. 38 "Arrest and Punishment of War Criminals, Nazis, and Militarists and the Internment, Control, and Surveillance of Potentially Dangerous Germans."
Article 139 of the Fundamental Law of Germany provides for the continuation of legal instructions on denazification.
Austria also has a legal base for it. Article 12 of the State Treaty for the Re-Establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria of May 15, 1955 prohibits former members of Nazi organisations from serving in the Austrian armed forces. In addition, the treaty provides for the return of property of Austrian nationals, including property that had been forcibly removed from the Austrian territory to Germany after 1938, to its owners but makes a reservation: "This provision shall not apply to the property of war criminals or persons who have been subjected to the penalties of denazification measures... (Article 23)."
This is just a brief review of historical examples. Everything must be formalised at the legal level.
A New New World Order
Uploaded three days before.
"Very insightful program. I hope the truth finally comes out about what was done in Syria and who we supported in that conflict. The West has a lot of blood on their hands in that war."
"I remember that in 2014 Novorussians started to document crimes against humanity done by Ukrainian Nazis in the White Book. It was Russia that asked them to do it."