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What Russians want to do with Ukraine

Photo: Couple embracing on the streets of Kharkiv
Source: Reuters

On April 3, 2022, an article by Russian political consultant Timofey Sergeytsev entitled “What Russia Must Do with Ukraine” was published in the Russian state media “RIA Novosti”. In this publication, the author writes about the alleged collective guilt of the Ukrainian people before Russia and suggests ways to “solve the Ukrainian issue“. The article vividly demonstrates the essence of Russian denazification, which is nothing but the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Legally, genocide means both actions that destroy a group in whole or in part, combined with some intention to do so.  Russia has done the deed and confessed to the intention.

The fact that Ukrainians are a politically active nation is characterized by Russians as “drawing the people into the Nazi regime”. Therefore, according to Sergeytsev, it is impossible to distinguish the Ukrainian government from the people. “Apart from the authorities, a large part of the masses, who are passive Nazis and supporters of Nazism, are also to blame. They supported and indulged the Nazi government. A just punishment of this part of the population is possible only as bearing the inevitable burdens of a just war against the Nazi system”, he wrote. For further “denazification” it is also proposed to resort to ideological repression (suppression) of Nazi attitudes and strict censorship: not only in the political sphere, but also in the sphere of culture and education. Similar methods have already been used by Russia in the territories occupied since 2014: a new educational program has been introduced, and all pro-Ukrainian persons have been persecuted. Similarly, an expert in the best traditions of the Stalinist regime suggests killing the Ukrainian intelligentsia: “The Bandera leadership must be liquidated, its re-education is impossible. Historical experience shows that tragedies and dramas of wartime benefit peoples who have been tempted and fascinated by the role of Russia's enemy”, Sergeytsev wrote. 

In general, the published article reflects the mood of the Russian political elite and its society. Political technologists such as Sergeytsev have been developing ideological aspects of modern rashism for years. The result of their work was an artificially created paradigm in which individuals who are supposed to become the intellectual elite work to justify the policies of the leadership of the Russian Federation and serve its interests. Therefore, the work “What should Russia do with Ukraine? - is not something unusual or unprecedented. This article not only corresponds to the mood of political elites, but also to the majority of the Russian population. The cultivation of Russian citizens with the conviction of the superiority of Great Russian culture over the cultures of neighboring countries and national minorities, together with the dehumanization of Ukrainians, the population's hostility to Ukraine and the cult of victory, led to atrocities in Ukraine committed by one part of Russian society and justified by the other. It is necessary to understand that by “Ukrainian Nazism Russians mean any manifestation of Ukrainian culture. In occupied Bucha, local residents could only be threatened because of national symbols. Therefore, when leaving the city, they left at home any traditional clothes and attributes.

The crimes of the Russians in Bucha shocked the civilized world. Although the Ukrainian population knew what was happening in the occupied city since the beginning of March. On the way to Irpin the bodies of executed citizens were lying everywhere along the road. There were cars with entire families who could not get out of the city and were murdered. And even after foreign journalists highlighted the massacre in Bucha to the whole world, the Putin regime refused to admit its crimes. The propaganda machine, consisting of journalists, pseudo-experts, both Russian and foreign, Russian influencers and bloggers, Russian officials and diplomats, launched a series of fakes in order to spread disinformation about the involvement of the Russian military in the massacres and discredit the Ukrainian armed forces. There were such fakes about Armed Forces of Ukraine among the Russian accusations:

1. The killings of civilians took place after the withdrawal of Russian troops and entry into the city of the Azov Regiment.

2. After the Russian troops left the city, the Armed Forces fired shelled Bucha with artillery.

3. The mass grave in Bucha was made by the Ukrainian military because they blocked the city more than a month ago and blew up a bridge near Irpin. Then the Armed Forces placed the corpses from this mass grave in the streets.

4. One of the videos from Bucha shows one of the bodies raising his hand and the other sitting up. All this is evidence of staging to demonize Russia.

5. Fresh corpses lay in the streets, there was no even time for blood to coagulate. This indicates that civilians were killed after the withdrawal of Russian troops.

According to analysts of the non-governmental organization Vox Ukraine, some versions contradict other versions from the same pro-Russian sources: in the first version the death of civilians is connected with the work of the Azov Regiment, and in the second - with artillery fire of the Armed Forces; in some versions the murder is called “staging with actors”, while in others the presence of corpses is acknowledged, but all responsibility is transferred to Ukraine. In addition to the testimony of the residents of Bucha, the fact of the killing of the local population by Russian troops is confirmed by satellite images.

What happened in Bucha is not a coincidence. The genocide of the Ukrainian people has been part of a special operation from the beginning. This is evidenced by a number of factors and events that give a better understanding of Russia's plans after the Bucha massacre:

1.The Russian leadership was convinced that it will not meet resistance in Ukraine, taking Kyiv in three days and the rest of the country in a few weeks at most.

2.On February 23, the Security Service of Ukraine announced that the Russians had purchased 45,000 bags for corpses.

3. In the first week after the start of a full-scale war, mobile crematoria were spotted in the border regions of Russia and Belarus. Ukrainian society decided that these crematoria were intended for killed Russian soldiers back then, but as it turned out, they were intended for covering up crimes of the mass killings of civilians by Russian troops.

4. The Russian military was immediately followed by the Rosguard, which was to suppress the uprising in the captured cities, such as Kherson.

5. The national standard for mass graves was approved in Russia in September. 

Satellite image of the mass grave in Bucha

Source: Vox Ukraine

Thus, after the massacres in Bucha, the dumping of bodies into mass graves, it becomes clear that neither bags nor crematoria were planned for Russian soldiers. The command did not expect such losses. The Russians planned to seize Ukraine, establish an occupation administration and commit genocide against the active part of the Ukrainian population, then cover up the traces of their crimes. While this is happening in the city of Mariupol, the scale of crimes in this city significantly exceeds the scale of the Bucha massacre. According to the City Council of Mariupol, Ukrainian intelligence has recorded 13 mobile crematoria in Mariupol. In the city, according to Mayor Vadim Boychenko, more than 10,000 civilians have already died, thousands are in need of a green corridor and immediate evacuation. The defenders of the city continue resistance.

69 years have passed since the death of Joseph Stalin, a person involved in two famines, the genocide of the Ukrainian people. His place in modern history has been taken by current Russian president Vladimir Putin, who recreates the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, which destroyed the Ukrainian intelligentsia. It was difficult for European and American officials to understand the tendencies that indicated the possibility of repeating this black page of Ukrainian history, however, the latest articles written by Russian experts and the elite of Russia, statements by students and teachers of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, indicate there is no and there won’t be in the coming years place for the existence of Ukraine as an independent state and Ukrainians as a European nation in Russian mind.

This belief is rooted, even in the minds of ordinary Russians, who like a mantra repeat the thesis of “brotherly peoples”. For them, there can be no separate Ukrainian nation, and any of its manifestations are branded as Nazism. The result of this war must be the complete defascization and denazification of totalitarian Russia in order to secure a peaceful future on European continent. The crimes committed by the Russians on Ukrainian soil cannot be left unpunished, so the Russian leadership and all those involved in serving the regime must be held accountable for another genocide of Ukrainians. If this cannot be granted without de facto control over Russian territory, the Russian Federation must be weakened as much as possible and isolated from the civilized world.


Sources:

1. Timothy Snyder: Russia’s Genocide Handbook, Timothy Snyder, 22.04.2022,
URL: https://www.stopfake.org/en/timothy-snyder-russia-s-genocide-handbook/

2. Сафарі на людей: 5 історій тих, хто вижив в Ірпені та Бучі, Яна Осадча, 06.04.2022,
URL: https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/2022/04/6/248117/

3. ФЕЙК: Російські військові не причетні до масових вбивств цивільних у Бучі, 16.04.2022,
URL: https://voxukraine.org/fejk-rosijski-vijskovi-ne-prychetni-do-masovyh-vbyvstv-tsyvilnyh-u-buchi/

4. Facebook сторінка Іващенка Богдана, 03.04.2021,
URL: https://www.facebook.com/bogdan3337/posts/1191054811432685 

5. Окупанти забороняють жителям Маріуполя ховати загиблих родичів, у місті працюють 13 мобільних крематоріїв – міськрада, 15.04.2022,
URL: https://interfax.com.ua/news/general/824344.html  

6. Мер Маріуполя Бойченко: У місті загинули понад 10 тисяч людей, 12.04.2022,
URL: https://www.dw.com/uk/мер-маріуполя-бойченко-у-місті-загинули-понад-10-тисяч-людей/a-61452371