The sign reads
"With a Bander StateStephan Bandera was a Nazi collaborator in World War 2, responsible for the massacre of Jews and Poles in Ukraine, Poland and Slovakia during those dark days.
our ways part"
He is a hero to some elements of the American installed junta in Kiev and his picture even hangs in some offices in the Rada
Yes, quite a few Ukrainians were "Nazi collaborators" in WW2, in the very mistaken assumption that the Nazis would liberate them from their Soviet oppressors. Personally, I find it quite significant that, even after Ukrainians found out what the Nazis were actually like, some of them remained collaborators because they considered the Soviets even worse.
ReplyDeleteI can understand people referring to a "Russian-installed junta" in Crimea, because the Russian troops occupying the place make it fairly obvious who's running things. But an "American-installed junta" in Kiev? Please outline the mechanism involved in this installation, because it seems to have successfully been kept secret from everyone except Putin's propaganda ministry.
A lot more Ukrainians joined the Red Army and helped win the Great PAtriotic War Milt while others fought as partisans for years to expel the Fascist invaders, joining/rejoining the Red Army after defeating them in their areas to drive them back to whence they came from.
ReplyDeleteLet me let you into a little secret Milt - America and the West are bankrupt, morally, spiritually and financially and they want to continue to loot the poorer Nations of the world to maintain their populations in the luxury to which Western people think they are entitled.
This is not about promoting freedom and democracy™ it is about Western Bankers looting Ukraine and its resources
This is all true. However, Stalin was an ally of Hitler up until the inevitable happened. Yet that is conveniently ignored in the tidal wave of Russian nationalism for its glorious past, with a victory that was won in spite of the Bolsheviks, rather than because of them.
ReplyDeleteGiven what Stalin did in Ukraine in the 1930s, it is hardly surprising that it inspired a revolt there, but Russians have never had a German style period of reflection of the unspeakable horrors that their ancestors and brethren committed upon each other and others in eastern Europe. Given Putin's admiration for the dark grey terror of the USSR, it is not going to happen soon.
Meanwhile, an authoritarian semi-fascist kleptocracy finds it convenient to claim that a protest movement that wants out of the grip of its empire is dominated by those who are actually not far different from themselves. That's not to deny there are such people in Ukraine, but it's a bit like the Serbian Chetniks pointing a finger at the Croatian Ustashe and saying "fascist". They need to hold up a mirror.