Neither can I believe any other country’s leadership and state controlled media would tell such barefaced lies about what are clearly war crimes and genocide by Russian forces. Moscow is suggesting Ukraine has somehow ‘staged’ all of the horrors using actors, fake blood and even bodies specially brought in to discredit Russian troops. It is madness even to think such a thing.
Those who think believe this is all Putin should read a piece that has been published by RIA Novosti - a Russian state-owned domestic news agency - written apparently by a well known Russian pundit, Timofey Sergeytsev, on April 3rd. An English translation is HERE. It is horrifying.
It has the title: What Russia should do with Ukraine, and says the issue of ‘denazification’ has moved to the ‘practical level.’
It assumes a majority of Ukrainians are 'Nazis.'
"Denazification is necessary when a significant part of the people — most likely the majority — has been absorbed and drawn into politics by the Nazi regime. That is, when the hypothesis "the people are good – the government is bad" does not work. Recognition of this fact is the basis of the policy of denazification, all its activities, and the fact itself is its subject."
Sergeytsev says:
"Denazification can only be carried out by the winner, which implies (1) his unconditional control over the denazification process and (2) the power to ensure such control. In this respect, a denazified country cannot be sovereign. The denazifying state, Russia, cannot proceed from a liberal approach to denazification. The ideology of the denazifier cannot be challenged by the guilty party subjected to denazification. Russia's recognition of the need to denazify Ukraine means recognition of the impossibility of the Crimean scenario for Ukraine as a whole. However, this scenario was impossible in 2014 and in the rebellious Donbass. Only eight years of resistance to Nazi violence and terror led to internal cohesion and a conscious unequivocal mass refusal to maintain any unity and connection with Ukraine, which defined itself as a Nazi society."
Or:
"Unlike, say, Georgia and countries BalticUkraine, as history has shown, is impossible as a nation-state, and attempts to "build" one naturally lead to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construction that does not have its own civilizational content, a subordinate element of an alien and alien civilization. Debanderization alone will not be enough for denazification – the Bandera element is only a performer and a screen, a disguise for the European project of Nazi Ukraine, so the denazification of Ukraine is also its inevitable de-Europeanization."
"Denazification as the goal of a special military operation within the framework of this operation itself is understood as a military victory over the Kiev regime, the liberation of territories from armed supporters of Nazification, the elimination of irreconcilable Nazis, the capture of war criminals, as well as the creation of systemic conditions for the subsequent denazification of peacetime."
And in the usual Russian style, he accuses the other side of war crimes:
"The Nazis, who took up arms, should be destroyed as much as possible on the battlefield. No significant distinction should be made between MAT and the so-called Natsbats, as well as the territorial defense that joined these two types of military formations. All of them are equally involved in extreme cruelty against the civilian population, are equally guilty of the genocide of the Russian people, and do not comply with the laws and customs of war. War criminals and active Nazis must be punished approximately and demonstratively. Total lustration should be carried out."
Lustration, by the way (I had to look it up) means a sort of purification. Make of that what you will. It sounds terrifying to me. It isn't Russia being the oppressor but the liberator of those who were being oppressed by Nazis!
Imagine this appearing on the BBC written by a British newspaper columnist about, say, Ireland.
Russia has become a mad dog. Years of state media pumping out lies has led to an entire population being brainwashed to such an extent they see enemies everywhere and even friendly, peaceful neighbours have somehow become ‘Nazis.’
I cannot see Russia occupying the whole or even a majority of Ukraine. That now looks impossible with the present forces, but it will remain a long term objective whatever happens. But it also seems impossible for Ukraine to take back territory in the Donbas, much of which has been occupied since 2014. Even Odessa may be lost.
Russia even plans to set up its own ‘Nuremberg’ trials to prosecute these 'Nazis.
There may be a settlement coming out of the stalemate but it won’t solve the problem. That will need to be done by sanctions which could take years.
Putin has miscalculated badly. To that extent he has already lost. He has damaged his own country. Militarily it’s been badly exposed. Thousands of Russian troops, regulars and conscripts alike have already perished. Russia will be immeasurably weakened economically by sanctions.
But above that he has turned Russia into a pariah. There will be pressure to remove it from every world body up to and including the UN. Russia will become like North Korea, friendless with a population struggling to survive every day and oppressed by a criminal cabal.
This west will certainly set up a war crimes tribunal. Not in the expectation that Putin or anyone senior will be brought to justice, but as a historical record. This will mean, sworn testimony, eye witness accounts, video and still pictures of the thousands of war crimes. When it begins, years from now, our media will be covering this daily and Russia’s reputation, never very good, will be further blackened.
Which country or company would want to be seen to have dealings with Russia? Only those without morals who have set themselves on a similar course.
Russian needs to be isolated from the civilised world until it comes to its senses.
Finally, a small point perhaps, but the abject poverty in which a significant proportion of the Russian population exist is shown by the widespread looting of cheap household goods like washing machines, air conditioners, children’s toys, frying pans and the like.
Footage from a security camera at a Belarusian post office shows dozens of Russian troops sending stolen goods back to their families in Russia. In some cases up to 450kg's worth. This is amazing to me.
