Why Vladimir Putin announced that he will “denazify” Ukraine

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin never stitches without thread. By declaring war on Ukraine, he proclaimed that one of the goals of the Russian military advance is to “de-Nazify” the country. Putin alluded to an episode of World War II on June 22, 1942, when German troops invaded Ukraine, at a time when it was part of the Soviet Union, and sectors of the population welcomed the Nazis with open arms. Nostalgic former Soviets like Putin have not forgiven the Ukrainians for this performance.

Nor have the Ukrainians forgotten what the communist regime did to their grievance. Between 1932 and 1934, around 4 million Ukrainians starved to death as a result of the forced agrarian collectivization program imposed by Josef Stalin. So the arrival of the Germans – especially for rural people – represented for Ukrainian nationalists the possibility of independence from the Soviet Union. Many joined the contingents organized by the Nazis to fight the Red Army, were guards in concentration camps and participated in the arrest and massacre of Jews, but this was not enough merit for the Germans. They would soon learn that Adolf Hitler treated them with contempt as Untermenschen (subhumans), as he did the Russians and all non-Aryans.

”In the Ukraine, a large proportion of the rural population initially welcomed the German troops by offering them, as was traditional, bread and salt. Following Stalin’s forced collectivization of farms and the terrible famine that killed millions, hatred of the communists was widespread,” wrote historian Anthony Beevor.

Russian communists have always denied the famine that Ukrainians call Holodomor (“to starve”). They always tried to erase any evidence. Under this Holodomor denier conception, Vladimir Putin was trained in the State Security Committee (KGB, for its acronym in Russian), an organization of which he became an officer.

”Between 1933 and 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) simply refused to acknowledge that any famine had taken place. The Soviet state destroyed local archives, made sure that death certificates did not allude to starvation, and even altered available census data to hide what happened,” said Holodomor historian Anne Applebaum. As long as the KGB existed, it covered up the famine. Putin was part of the KGB.

Stalin’s war against Ukraine is now followed by Putin.

During the Soviet Patriotic War against the Germans, the Ukrainians played an extraordinary role. It is estimated that up to 8 million Ukrainians joined the Red Army, including the grandfather of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and several members of his family. That is why Zelensky was surprised by Putin’s statement about the “denazification” of Ukraine, because he is also of Jewish origin. The Nazis wiped out the Ukrainian Jews.

In a recent interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Zelensky precisely recounted the dramatic story of his ancestors: “Only he remained from my paternal grandfather’s family. All the others died. My grandfather, despite being young, joined the Soviet Army. His older brothers were also enlisted and all except my grandfather died as soldiers. Everyone else on this side of my family was shot because they were Jewish. The children too. Instead, my grandmother and younger sister were evacuated to Uzbekistan. His father also fought and came back alive from the front.”

Putin biographers like Steven Lee Myers, Hubert Seipel, Masha Gessen and Catherine Belton agree that Putin never abandoned the KGB mindset. What he does with the Ukraine confirms this.

The New Tsar: The Rise and Dominance of Vladimir Putin, Steven Lee Myers. Putin: power seen from within, Hubert Seipel. The Man Without a Face: The Surprising Rise of Vladimir Putin, Masha Gessen. Putin’s Men: How the KGB Took Over Russia and Confronted the West, Catherine Belton. Putin’s Russia, Anna Politkovskaya.1. Horror. A famine scene captured by Alexander Wienerberger, risking his life. 2. Party. Ukrainian peasants celebrated the German invaders.3. counteroffensive. The Red Army was supported by the Ukrainians. 4. agent. Vladimir Putin never left the thought forged in the KGB.

Source-larepublica.pe