Putin's skewed view of WWII threatens his neighbors and the West

Here's a key point from Lucian Kim's op-ed that most Russians and those who haven't spent time in Eastern Europe do not understand [emphasis mine]:

For most countries that emerged from the Soviet empire 25 years ago, independence from Moscow exposed messy, overlooked histories. The small nations of east central Europe had been pushed and pulled by the Nazi and Communist juggernauts surrounding them. From the Baltics to the Balkans, it was a story of collaboration and betrayal, resistance and subjugation. One and the same army could be viewed as liberator, conqueror and occupier. Loyalties were split, quartered and ground to pieces.

Complexity or inconvenient facts had no place in official Soviet historiography, where the Red Army was celebrated as the undisputed victor in the war against fascism. The 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that carved up Poland and ceded the Baltic nations to the Soviet Union was forgotten; the Holocaust downplayed; and the role of the Western Allies diminished. World War Two was remembered as the “Great Patriotic War” and didn’t start until the Nazis’ genocidal invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. There was no mention that Hitler and Stalin were allies before the attack. The Pacific war was a sideshow that the Soviet Union didn’t enter until Japan’s defeat was imminent.

Kim said it: complexity. There's no place for it in Soviet hagiography, er, historiography. Take Ukraine in WWII, for instance. Today most Russians and many "liberals" in the West decry Ukraine's national freedom fighters in UIA-OUN as "Nazi collaborators." Their history was complex, and messy. UIA fought with Nazis and against them; they fought Soviet occupiers and Polish forces.  But it's important to keep in mind that the Soviet Union had just recently killed over 3 million Ukrainians in 1932-33!  Today's Russians and 20/20-hindsight historians ignore Soviet genocidal mass murder in Ukraine, and instead express indignation that some Ukrainians would ever have chosen to ally themselves with Nazi Germany in the (probably vain) hope of achieving eventual national liberation from Soviet mass-murderers. 

And indeed, Russians conveniently overlook that their WWII hero Josef Stalin was the first to collaborate with Hitler with terrible, tragic results for both Russia and Europe!  

Coldly rationalizing it, we can understand why Stalin sided with Hitler, for much the same reason those subsequent "collaborators" in E. Europe did: to buy time before eventually turning on an "ally"; because his side was relatively weaker; and because both had common enemies. These things happened -- but in the awful context of world war. If we're going to judge these "devil's pacts" post facto, then we should judge them realistically and equanimously.

Unmentioned in Kim's article are the Soviet Cossack paramilitary units -- the true patriotic ones who today wear St. George's ribbons and say that fight Ukrainian "fascists" and "Banderovtsy" -- who went over to the Nazi side by the thousands, including, ironically, in Crimea. They served in the Russian Liberation Army that was directly commanded by German Nazi officers. (To see more, Google translate this article in Russian: http://crime.in.ua/news/20140324/posobniki-nacystov ).  Germany officers never commanded guerrilla fighters in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. And yet Russians today view Cossack paramilitary units positively and UIA as worse than devils.

Kim also notes, as I and many others have, that today's Russians do not have much to look back at and take pride in. The Allied victory in WWII is one of the few events Russians in the 20th century that they can be proud of:

When Putin came to power in 2000, Russians were still reeling from a decade of nihilism that had followed the collapse of Communism. For a country that was beginning to pick itself up, the “Great Victory” against the Nazis presented itself as the ideal surrogate for a national idea to pull together Russia. Practically every family had suffered in the war, and the whole country knew the iconography from Soviet television and film. Putin couldn’t buy Russia a new identity for all the petrodollars in the world, but he could make Victory Day the de facto national holiday, celebrated with ever more gargantuan military parades.

Finally, I can echo the assertion that most Russians do not understand that there was a real war in the Pacific. To them, the war ended in Berlin when the Soviets seized it. (The Soviets' subsequent rape of Germany is another story....)  Regardless, it's important to Putin and his supporters today that WWII remains a Russian victory to defeat Fascism in Europe. 

How Vladimir Putin’s skewed view of World War Two threatens his neighbors and the West

By Lucian Kim

April 13, 2015 | Reuters

URL: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/13/idUS376956048920150413

M. Shishkin: Thanks to Putin, post-war Europe is now pre-war Europe

I can't think of anything to add this essay by famed Russian writer Mikhail Shishkin except my regret that, in addition to Russians in Russia being zombified and primed to revert amazingly fast to their self-deceiving Soviet ways, so too have many Russian-Americans, including U.S. academics in Russian and post-Soviet studies. 

Emotionally, not intellectually, they have felt the need to take sides, and sadly they have taken the side of the ex-KGB dictator because he's "theirs." 

Moreover, among Russian thinkers and elites there has always been a feeling of chauvinism and superiority vis-a-vis their "little Slav brothers" in Ukraine. I suspect but cannot prove that many Russian "liberals" are jealous of Ukraine's Orange Revolution and Maidan Revolution, and so they seek to discredit both, either as nefarious anti-Russian plots organized and funded by the U.S. (in both cases, they charge) or a neo-Fascist coup by an un-elected "junta," in the latter case.

Russia, Ukraine and Europe have been into Vladimir Putin's black hole of fear

By Mikhail Shishkin

September 18, 2014 | Guardian

I remember that as a child I read about black holes in a popular science magazine about space and it scared me. The idea of our world being sucked into these breaks in the universe kept bothering me until I realised that it all was so far away that it would not reach us. But then a black hole tore our world very close to us. It started sucking in houses, roads, cars, planes, people and whole countries. Russia and Ukraine have already fallen into this black hole. And it is now sucking in Europe in front of our eyes.

This hole in the universe is the soul of one very lonely ageing man. The black hole is his fear.

TV images of the demise of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi were messages that fate sent him from exotic countries. Protest rallies that gathered hundreds of thousands of people in Moscow ruined his inauguration and signalled approaching danger. The disgraceful flight of Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych earlier this year set off alarm bells: if Ukrainians could oust their gang, it could serve as an example for the brotherly nation.

The instinct of self-preservation kicked in immediately. The formula for saving any dictatorship is universal: create an enemy, start a war. The state of war is the regime's elixir of life. A nation in patriotic ecstasy becomes one with its "national leader", while any dissenters can be declared "national traitors".

Before our eyes, Russian TV was turned from a tool of entertainment and misinformation into a weapon of mass destruction. Journalists became a special part of the arsenal, maybe the most important one, more important even than missiles. The desired world view formed in the infected minds of a zombified nation: Ukrainian fascists wage a war to annihilate the Russian world on orders from the west.

"There are no Russian soldiers in Crimea," Vladimir Putin claimed to the world with a wry grin in the spring. The west could not understand: how can he tell such blatant lies to his nation's face? But the nation did not take it as lies: we ourselves understand everything, but deceiving the enemy is not a sin, rather a virtue. The fact that "Russian soldiers were indeed in Crimea" was later admitted with such pride!

We are back to the Soviet times of total lies. The government renewed the social contract with the nation under which we had lived for decades: we know that we lie and you lie, and we continue to lie to survive. Generations have grown up under this social contract. These lies cannot even be called a sin: the power of vitality and survival is concentrated in them. The government was afraid of its nation, which is why it lied. The nation participated in the lies, because it was afraid of the government. The lies are a means of survival for a society built on violence and fear.

But just violence and fear cannot explain such an all-encompassing lie.

Why did the father of the Russian paratrooper who lost his legs in Ukraine write on Facebook, "My son is a soldier; he followed orders, which is why, whatever happened to him, he is right and I am proud of him"?

He keeps his mind off the idea that his son went to kill brotherly people and became disabled not defending his motherland from real enemies, but rather because of an insipid colonel's panic-stricken fear of losing his power, because of the ambitions of a clique of thieves swarming around the throne. How can he admit that his country, his motherland is the aggressor and that his son is the fascist? Motherland is always on the side of good. This is why when Putin lies in his nation's face, everyone knows that he is lying, and he knows that everyone knows, but the electorate agrees with his lies.

When Putin tells blatant lies in the face of western politicians, he then watches their reaction with vivid interest and not without pleasure, enjoying their confusion and helplessness. He wants Kiev to return on its knees, like a prodigal son, to the fatherly embrace of the empire. He is sure that Europe will boil with indignation, but eventually calm down, abandoning Ukraine to brotherly rape. He offers the west the chance to join the social contract of lies. All it has to do is say that Putin is a peacekeeper and agree to all the terms of his peacekeeping plan.

The sanctions imposed by western states against Russia represent a timid hope that economic hardship will make Russians resent the regime and nudge them towards active protests. Alas, it is an idle hope. Russians have a proverb: beat your own so the others fear you. It is hard to imagine officials in Berlin or Paris summarily banning food imports. The entire nations would burst in indignation that same day.

In contrast, in Russia such a move boosted the ruler's already sky-high rating. Putin knows the difference between the power he enjoys and the power of European democracies. Democratic governments are liable to their electorate for the people and their future, whereas under a dictatorship, one is only liable to follow orders. Every dictator hopes he is immortal, but since it is impossible, he is ready to drag everyone he despises into the black hole. And he despises everyone – both his own people and everybody else.

Putin knows that the west cannot cross the red line that he himself has long crossed and left behind. The red line is the willingness to go to war. It is hard for a human mind to switch from a postwar to a prewar time. The means of mass informational terror in Russia helped Russians to make the switch. Moreover, Russia is already in a state of war, an undeclared war against the west. Coffins with fallen Russian soldiers have started coming to Russian cities from Ukraine. Europe has fallen behind; it is still enjoying the relaxed prewar peace.

Europeans are not ready for the new reality that has set in. Leave us alone! Return everything to the way it was: jobs, gas, peace! No supplying weapons to Ukraine! One cannot start an armed conflict in the age of nuclear weapons because of some Mariupol! Should the world perish in a catastrophe because Ukraine was to be part of Europe? It is just because the Americans want to cause us to quarrel with Russians! It is all the fault of US imperialists and European bureaucrats! Why do we need sanctions that would hurt us too? The French are ready to take to the streets to protest at the American ruling that forces France to abandon the sale of Mistral warships to Russia. Moscow just protects its interest in Ukraine! And maybe fascists are indeed in power in Kiev? It may have started as a public uprising, but then a Nazi junta took over. Then why should we support them and fight with Russia? Putin offers peace! We want peace!

Putin's calculations are proving correct: it is more likely that citizens of western states, scared by economic woes and the possibility of war, would elect new governments, replacing Putin's enemies with more amenable politicians, than Russians would start to protest because of devastation and rising food prices.

Putin offered Europe his social contract. And with every new person willing to accept it, the black hole will grow and expand.

One needs to realise: postwar Europe is already prewar Europe.

News digest / Catching up on news (08.24.2014)

Here's a news roundup from the past few weeks. Sorry I haven't had time to re-post these with the thoughtful and incisive commentary that you've come to expect from me:

"How Isis came to be," By Ali Khadery, August 22, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4xx9z  -- FASCINATING, ESP. CONSIDERING THE U.S. HAS ARMED ISIS TWICE ALREADY

"Obama's legacy could be a revitalized NATO," By Anne Applebaum, August 22, 2014, Washington Post. URL:http://wapo.st/1p27Z8v -- A SCARIER RUSSIA DEMANDS A STRONGER NATO

"New Study Debunks Big Corporations' Tax Inversion Arguments," By Ben Hallman, August 19, 2014, Huffington Post. URL:http://huff.to/1vdX4Ow  -- THE FACTS DON'T SUPPORT INVERSION

"Left out in the cold by the ice bucket fad," By Michael Hiltzik, August 21, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/21/237217/michael-hiltzik-left-out-in-the.html --  DONATE MONEY; CONSERVE WATER

"US still has time to stake out a position of strength in Ukraine," By John Bolton, August 21, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/21/237223/us-still-has-time-to-stake-out.html#storylink=cpy -- USUALLY I DISAGREE WITH 'YOSEMITE SAM' BOLTON, BUT HE'S BASICALLY CORRECT

"Shoddy US roads, bridges take a toll on the economy," By Don Lee, August 17, 2014, Los Angeles Times. URL:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/08/17/236762/shoddy-us-roads-bridges-take-a.html  -- WHY LIBERALS AND DEMOCRATS CAN'T RUN AND WIN ON THIS SIMPLE FACT IS BEYOND MY UNDERSTANDING

"Among world leaders, the trend for acting like Vladimir Putin is catching on," By Adam Taylor, August 14, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://wapo.st/1mKGRLp  -- JUST TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF IF YOU WANT TO BE LIKE PUTIN!

"The GOP’s war on voters continues in Virginia," By Editorial Board, August 14, 2014, Washington Post. URL:http://wapo.st/1sHGEjf -- PESKY VOTERS! WISH THEY'D JUST STAY AT HOME!

"The case for free tampons," By Jessica Valenti, August 14, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4vjeg -- IT GENERATED A LOT OF BUZZ ON THE INTERNETS

"City-Run Gas Station Makes Waves In Southeastern Kentucky," By Emil Moffatt, August 13, 2014, NPR. URL:http://www.npr.org/2014/08/13/340085122/city-run-gas-station-makes-waves-in-southeastern-kentucky?sc=17&f=1001&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app  -- IN A TRULY FREE MARKET GOVERNMENT GETS A CHANCE TO COMPETE WITH PRIVATE GOODS AND SERVICES!

"Economic inequality, not just wages at the bottom, needs to be addressed," By Harold Meyerson, August 13, 2014, Washington Post. URL: http://wapo.st/1kCqWmT  -- AMEN BROTHER

"WATCH this to understand the level of Russia’s sickness," August 9, 2014, YouTube. URL: http://youtu.be/EwwBFJkwZ_Q --EVER WONDERED WHAT FASCIST STATE THEATER LOOKS LIKE?  HERE YOU GO

"Teenagers in US prisons: it's time for the savagery and neglect to finally end," By Sadhbh Walshe, August 7, 2014, Guardian. URL: http://gu.com/p/4vh3h -- OUR COLLECTIVE SHAME

Russian law to ban 'foreign' words

So lemme get this straight:  It's not okay when Ukraine, the only country in the world where Ukrainian is spoken, wants to protect its national language -- in fact it's "Fascism;" but it's just dandy when Russia discriminates against other languages -- going so far as to exorcise "foreign words" from public speech and writing!

This is worse than days of the Soviet Union, folks.  

Looking deeper, the fact that many commonly used terms simply don't exist in Russian reflects that the world's cultural, scientific and commercial dynamism is centered in the West... and eventually makes its way to Russia, where it is transliterated naturally by Russian first adopters who find it simpler to use the original word than invent a tongue-twisting Russian equivalent.  

Indeed, the casual use of foreign words is a status symbol among Russians; it implies the speaker is cosmopolitan, liberally educated, well-read and -traveled.  However, these are not the kind of folks the Kremlin likes: it wants Russians (minus the very elite, of course) to be parochial, state-educated, monolingual and stay at home.

Russia's Cultural Committee Wants to Ban 'Foreign' Words

June 19, 2014 | Moscow Times

URL: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russias-cultural-committee-wants-to-ban-foreign-words/502202.html

Russians hang an Iron Curtain in their minds

There is another aspect to Russians' mistrust of the West, including some of their ex-Soviet neighbors. Many Russians are envious of countries living better than they do, especially former Soviet states.    

Even with its vast wealth of natural resources, Russia's GDP per capita of $18,100 is lower than in EU members and ex-Soviet satellites Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Czech Republic.  Even EU "basket case" Greece has a higher GDP per capita, $23,600. The EU average GDP per capita is almost double Russia's. That's part of it.

The other part is the aftermath of the Second World War.  My first Victory Day (May 9) celebration in Russia illustrates what I mean. One man started a toast that became a long complaint about the "fritzes" (Germans).  He concluded, "We [meaning Russians] saved the world from German fascism, and now look how they live, and how we live!" His point was obvious to everybody, but without any analysis why it turned out so -- the Soviet Union's planned military-industrial economy; the Iron Curtain and the USSR's withdrawal into isolation; repression by the Soviet state against its own people, and so on.

In his mind -- in millions of Russians' minds-- their victory in WWII and subsequent superpower status entitled them to live better, but it never materialized. Many Russians see this outcome as colossally unfair, and at least partly attributable to a Western conspiracy to keep Russia down. This was a young Russian: he never saw battle, never fought Nazis; nevertheless he was convinced that Europe owed him a Victory Day birthright. 

On top of this historical sleight, a newly united Europe went and admitted Russia's "little brothers" into NATO and the EU, leaving Russia out of the club.  

So WWII and distrust of Europe continue to have an extremely powerful effect on Russians; and the Putin regime amplifies this effect with relentless state propaganda.

Russians' Own Iron Curtain – in Their Heads

By Georgy Bovt

May 13, 2014 | The Moscow Times

The Ukrainian crisis is far from over and might yet get worse. At times, it seems as if this is only a bad dream, but when we wake up, we realize that it is real.

But things will never be the same again. Russia's relationship with the West has been destroyed for a long time. Most likely, normal relations will not be restored until a new generation of leaders comes to power in Russia and the West.

The West prefers to speak to Russia via sanctions and "teach it a hard lesson." But even the harshest sanctions against Russia will not likely cause the economy or the regime to collapse. In fact, sanctions have rarely proven effective against another country. They generally cause more hardship for ordinary citizens than the ruling elite.

Many hawks in the West sense the same old drumbeat of the Cold War in the current confrontation with Moscow. Similarly, old Cold War-era hawks — as well as younger versions of them — have reappeared everywhere in Russia as well. That Cold War-era generation of Russians is familiar with living in state of confrontation with the West and also in isolation from the rest of the world.

Russians have never been citizens of the world. Efforts by a broader cross-­section of Russian society to integrate with European society began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Russian Empire was poised to finally end its provincialism and shake free of its status as the backwoods of Europe. But the thin layer of pro-Western Russians who had been nurtured since the time of Peter the Great were all but eliminated or driven out of the country after the Bolshevik Revolution. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks tried to develop ties with Europe by organizing a global proletariat revolution, but those efforts failed. In its place, the Soviet Union drove itself into isolation from the outside world.

About 80 percent of Russians have never left the Commonwealth of Independent States and have no plans to do so. Of those who have visited the West, many were disappointed to learn that it was not the "heaven on Earth" they had expected. Life there can be difficult and stressful, and the laws are unfamiliar. Many Russians find themselves asking, "Why fill your head with strange rules and regulations and struggle to learn a foreign language?" Only about 5 percent of Russians speak a foreign language at conversational level. The authorities have already prohibited the siloviki from traveling abroad on the far-fetched pretext that 150 different countries might arrest them and extradite them to the U.S. If you add the families members of those siloviki, this means that about 5 million Russians are essentially banned from traveling abroad.

The West will have little luck frightening Russians with the prospect of a new Iron Curtain because Russians themselves already built one long ago — in their minds. And that barrier is higher and more formidable than any physical Berlin Wall. Any information you want is now available on the Internet, but few have the desire and time to search for it, analyze it and compare it to the official propaganda. There is lots of talk that the authorities are planning to build a "cyber firewall" to isolate the Russian Internet as much as possible from "corrupting influences" both within Russia and abroad — including, perhaps, banning Facebook, Twitter and Google from Russia by year's end. But these steps may not be necessary. After all, the widespread anti-Americanism among Russians today arose in an environment in which information offering an alternative to the official propaganda was freely available on the Internet.

Most Russians are comfortable with the limited information they receive from official sources, just as they are comfortable with the growing provincialism of the country as a whole. Everything is simpler that way. What does make them uncomfortable is differing opinions that challenge their provincial world view. And that explains the increasingly hostile attitude toward the West. Never having seen the West, with its more prosperous and democratic societies, those who promote Russia's isolation are attempting to avoid the temptations and feelings of inferiority. That is an infantile reaction, but it is real, giving state propaganda a free hand to manipulate Russians pretty much as it wants.

It is not even necessary anymore to require exit visas to leave the country, as the Soviet Union did. Most Russians don't want to leave, are scared off by the challenges of starting a new life from scratch in a foreign country, or simply do have no financial means to leave. As for the more innovative, creative and independent-thinking Russians, the authorities have never regretted their emigration from Russia. Recall when prominent economist Sergei Guriev left Russia a year ago. In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "If he wants to leave Russia, let him leave."

But this increasing brain drain only serves to widen Russia's gap with the developed world in the areas of education, technology, information and culture. All of this, coupled with the loss of technological competence, make Russia and individual Russians less competitive and adapted to the modern world.

This new isolation will lead to the same results as the Soviet-era isolation did. Any system that so severely limits communication with the outside world, takes pride in its "unique" form of provincialism and lacks a free exchange of ideas, information, technology and scientific research is doomed to fail. But like the passengers on a boat approaching a waterfall, the overwhelming majority of Russians living in this system will remain blissfully unaware of what is happening and, right up until the very last minute, where they are headed.

Comparison of Putin's 2014 speech with Hitler's in 1939

My Russian-speaking friends must watch this! Savik Shuster deserves big kudos for making the obvious, well... obvious. If anybody is a fascist aggressor in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, it's Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

We can compare Putin's words yesterday with Hitler's words in 1939, and the histrionics and trumped up pretexts correspond 1:1.

Сравнение речей Путина и Гитлера (Шустер Live, 21.03.2014)

By Xottabi4009

March 21, 2014 | YouTube

Who are these neo-Nazi bogeymen in Ukraine?

I'm pasting the most relevant graphs here, since most frequently I hear that Pravy Sector and Svoboda are powerful neo-Nazi bogeyman who will... do what, I'm not sure, but they're definitely the worst guys since Hitler, all pro-Russians assure us [emphasis mine]:

The leader of the Right Sector is Dmytro Yarosh, born and raised in the predominantly Russian speaking south-eastern city of Dniprodzerzhinsk. Yarosh was a member of the Young Pioneers and the Countrywide Leninist Communist Youth League  and served two years in the Soviet Army. One of the key forces during the Kyiv Revolution, the Right Sector has many Russian speaking members and has not been associated with any ‘fascist’ or anti-Jewish statements. In his first foreign interview, Yarosh told TIME that while the revolution needs to steer the country into a new direction, not dependent on either the West or East, he understands that any new opposition government is not likely to carve out a place for him and his men.

The Svoboda party was established in 1991 but only within the last four years attained a noticeable profile. Both Svoboda and Right Sector are very minor players on the current political landscape and have no realistic hope of a major role in the coming government. Svoboda members have recently bullied a TV journalist. Svoboda formally says it is not anti-European, nor anti-Russian, nor anti- Jewish but pro-Ukrainian.

Actually, the ‘anti-Semitic’ theme is now being played by Moscow at low volume ever since the chief Rabbi of Ukraine, seconded by every major Ukrainian Jewish organization, issued statements categorically affirming the freedoms Jews have in Ukraine and supporting the new Kyiv government. There are no instances of any Human Rights Watch organization reporting either Jewish or Russian “persecution” in Ukraine.

What the West does not understand about the “right”-ist groups in Ukraine is that they are here because the anti-Imperialist battle is not over, and they are not that frightening. They are certainly not saying “ban all foreigners…or Russians… or Jews” like Right groups in other European countries. What they are saying is it is time to save their culture and society which the Russians destroyed.

Europe and the EU have many more militant, far-right parties than Ukraine does, and yet these countries are not under existential threat as Ukraine is from Russia. Their language and culture are not under systematic assault as Ukrainian is by Russia. Extreme nationalism is a reaction, not a cause.  If it was OK to be pro-Ukrainian without being accused of fascism, if it was considered normal to defend the Ukrainian language the same way France's gov't. defends French, or Estonia's gov't. defends Estonian, then there would be little cause for nationalist fervor in Ukraine.  

And again, I repeat that there are way more neo-Nazis in Russia than Ukraine. Go to YouTube and search "skinheads russia" or "neo-nazis Russia" and see what horrible videos pop up!

“The Wolf who cried Fascist!” – Pathology of Russian Propaganda against Ukraine, pt. 2

By Adrian Bryttan

March 21, 2014 | Euromaidan PR

URL: http://euromaidanpr.com/2014/03/21/the-wolf-who-cried-fascist-pathology-of-russian-propaganda-against-ukraine-pt-2/#more-5340

All sides agree: Hilter was a bad guy (Atlantic)

At least they can all agree on something.

Good News From Ukraine: Everyone Still Hates Hitler

By Matt Ford

March 20, 2014 | The Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/03/good-news-from-ukraine-everyone-still-hates-hitler/284489/

Crimea turns into peninsula of violence and fear (Kyiv Post)

Some worry about the potential actions of pro-Ukraine "fascists" (nationalists) who are now (partially) in power in Kyiv. Meanwhile, real kidnappings, beatings, murders and disappearances of Ukrainian nationalists and journalists are taking place in "pro-Russian" Crimea.  

Putin has not brought law, order and peace to Crimea, not yet. So far he has brought lawlessness, and carte blanche to commit crimes for anybody calling himself "pro-Russian."  

Here are more examples of what Yanukovych's government, "titushki" (hired street thugs) in Ukraine and "local self-defense forces" in Crimea have done:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/25/world/europe/ukrainian-journalist-beaten/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10598227/A-heros-grave-in-Ukraines-west-for-the-father-who-went-east-for-the-cause.html

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/31/22520784-ukraine-activist-says-kidnappers-tortured-him-cut-off-part-of-his-ear?lite

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/18/reshat-ametov-crimea_n_4983978.html

http://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-reports-raise-pre-referendum-tensions-crimea-203434209.html

http://www.rferl.org/content/journalists-activists-reported-missing-in-crimea/25291690.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/world/europe/a-kiev-question-what-became-of-the-missing.html?_r=0

http://15minut.org/article/zhurnalista-radio-svoboda-v-krymu-pohitili-prjamo-iz-avtobusa-posle-vykinuli-v

Crimea, typically a popular tourist spot, turns into peninsula of violence, fear under Russian occupation

By Oksana Grytsenko

March 19, 2014 | Kyiv Post

Kidnappings, threats and assaults of Ukrainian activists and journalists have become the norm in Crimea since the Russian military invasion of the Black Sea peninsula on Feb. 27.

On March 9, while Ukraine was celebrating the 200th anniversary of poet Taras Shevchenko’s birth, two activists from the EuroMaidan Revolution -- Anatoliy Kovalsky and Andriy Shchekun -- arrived at the Simferopol train station to pick up a parcel decorated in Ukrainian blue-and-yellow.

Local pro-Kremlin militia promptly beat the two men and took them to a police station. Now they are believed to be members of the Russian Unity party, but have not been seen since.

Sevastopol activist Igor Kiriushchenko, who is helping Ukrainian soldiers at military bases, had to urgently leave Crimea on March 10 when dozens of men with white armbands from the Russian Bloc militia broke into his apartment and threatened the lives of him and his wife. “Get out of Crimea, otherwise we will kill you,” they said, Kiriushchenko reported.

On March 18, Ibraim Umerov, a journalist at ATR, a Crimean Tatar channel, was brought to a hospital with a broken knee after he and a cameraman tried to film the seizure of an auto repair shop in Simferopol by a group of masked men. The men severely beat him on the spot.

This is the everyday terror that Crimeans are facing under Russia’s control, an invasion condemned as illegal by most of the world.

“This is real terror, when people are getting abducted, when armed men are walking the streets, when journalists are getting beaten,” said Sergiy Mokrushin, a Simferopol investigative journalist, adding there are as many as 10 activists missing in Crimea right now.

These cases of kidnappings and abuse are disturbingly reminiscent to those in Kyiv during the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled Viktor Yanukovych as president on Feb. 22. Dozens of anti-government activists were reportedly taken and tortured in the three months before victory, and at least one was killed, aside from the 100 protesters and police officers shot and killed.

After the new government took power, Berkut riot police officers sought shelter in Crimea and got welcomed as local heroes and victims of what many of the peninsula’s two million residents believe was a violent, fascist takeover by nationalists in Kyiv. Many of the riot police officers can now be spotted alongside police officers on the streets and checkpoints of the peninsula.

Near the front gate of the Berkut base in Simferopol is a small tent camp adorned with the words “Crimean Front” that was set up in late February. Some 50 men who call themselves Crimean Self-Defense, a Russian-backed outfit, spend their nights guarding the barracks of the Berkut riot police officers.

“Almost all of the former Berkut police officers are now here,” Mokrushin said. “Moreover, very many “titushkas” (thugs hired by the ousted Yanukovych regime) were also brought to Kyiv from Crimea.”

These people have become the backbone of pro-Kremlin Crimean self-defense groups and often apply the brutal methods they were using towards activists in Kyiv to those here. “They like to be scot-free here, to feel their strength, when they may check people’s documents and bags wherever they want,” Mokrushin added.

The Russian military takeover has already prompted more than 500 people, including Ukrainian activists and Crimean Tatars, to seek shelter outside the peninsula in recent weeks, according to Ukrainian Border Guard Service statistics. Ukrainian border guards and their families are also being harassed by the pro-Kremlin Crimean self-defense groups, they say.  

Iryna Brunova-Kalisetska, a Simferopol psychologist, said that despite the fact that pro-Russian activists in Crimea openly hate EuroMaidan in Kyiv, they have adopted some attributes of the revolution. Apart from self-defense groups that are reminiscent to those representing EuroMaidan, there are also some local tent camps, widespread wearing of black-and-yellow St. George ribbons on the streets of Crimean cities. “This is a mirror effect of EuroMaidan,” Brunova-Kalisetska said.

The pro-Russian camp is also experiencing euphoria, which could be witnessed in Crimea in recent days with numerous street celebrations attended by thousands of people showing off Russian and Soviet symbols, after the March 16 referendum which led to Putin to order the transfer of Ukraine’s Crimea to Russia. “But this euphoria obviously will not last for long,” the psychologist added.

Given the danger to people’s lives and their personal safety if they oppose the Russian takeover, Brunova-Kalisetska said that many residents are simply too frightened to protest.

 “They don’t care about violence until it touches their relatives or friends,” she said.

U.S. and Ukraine must fight Russia's propagandistic lies

This one's about a week old but still quite relevant, since Russia continues to push obvious lies about Ukraine.  I hope to God that Obama, Cameron and Merkel are telling Putin on the phone, "Look, we know you're full of shit.  Cut the crap."  

Just to give you an idea of the cynicism of the liar we're dealing with in Russia's President Vladimir Putin:

[Russian propaganda minister Dmitry] Kiselov’s film of Ukrainians purportedly fleeing to Russia was actually of a normal day at a congested Polish border point. The pro-Russian protesters arrive in sleek buses as “protest tourists” with plenty of “walking around money” to pay bands, organize mobs, and harass reporters and international observers, who could documents any outrages against ethnic Russians. Crimean “self defense forces” are not armed and uniformed from the local five and dime, as Russian television claims, but are regular [Russian] troops. Russia’s media magicians claim with a straight face that footage of the brutal horror of Maidan is actually film of neo-Nazi-inspired demonstrations on the streets of Crimea. Wrong time and wrong place, but good television! Russian-television maps already show Crimea as part of Russia and circulate fake photographs of nonexistent Hitler posters in Kiev.

And on and on.... Educated and well-informed Ukrainians and certainly Westerners overestimated the capacity of ignorant and propaganda-laden Crimeans to distinguish truth from fiction.  We can't repeat this mistake in Eastern Ukraine.  We can't assume the Internet magically keeps people well-informed; in fact it can quite effectively can keep them misinformed. Meanwhile, most Ukrainians still get their news from the TV, which is increasingly Russian.

Putin's Big Lie On Ukraine (If It Weren't So Serious It Would Be Funny)

By Paul Roderick Gregory

March 10, 2014 | Forbes

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it…..For the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels 

Joke circulating in Russia: If you want to live in France – you go to France. If you want to live in UK, you go to England. If you want to live in Russia – Russia will come to you! 

Ukrainian Facebook posting: “We have not killed one Russian (Rossiyan), we did not take their land or introduce troops on their territory, did not grab their resources. We simply became a free people for one week. Is this enough for Russia to declare war on us with a unanimous decision and  the full approval of the Russian people! Why do they hate us? Because of freedom? Because of different thinking?

Russia’s Big Lies about Ukraine, while easily discredited, have been repeated with such frequency and with so little pushback that they, unfortunately, are coming to be perceived as true. The Western world finds it hard to believe that a head of state and his official media engage in persistent and blatant lying and distortion. “There must be something there,” we think. “If they are lying, where are the rebuttals?”

Putin takes propaganda seriously. We do not. That is a major mistake.

The first Big Lie is that Ukraine is such a cauldron of ethnic hatred and violence that Mother Russia was forced to intervene to rescue and protect Russian speakers from their extremist Ukrainian neighbors. False.

Ukrainians, be they first-language Russian or Ukrainian speakers (virtually all speak Russian), would shake their heads, just as would Bavarians when warned they are in danger of ethnic and racial violence at the hands of North Germans. On any stroll in Kiev or other cities, one hears more Russian than Ukrainian. Although the Russian media has likely scoured the record, there are no incidents of Ukrainian-on-Russian ethnic violence. There are no cases of Russian speakers in the east hiding in their cellars from the latest Ukrainian pogrom. Ukrainians do not feel hatred towards Russians. First-hand reports coming out of Ukraine say that Ukrainians, who had regarded Russians as friends and neighbors, for the first time regard them with a sense of loss as “others” (chuzhie).

Russia’s second Big Lie is that Ukraine’s East and South wish to join voluntarily their Russian brethren in a united Russia. False.

Putin cites his Levada Institute polls as proof of the admiration he enjoys among his people. He should therefore accept the results of a scientific poll of more than 2,000 Ukrainian citizens taken during the worst of the Maidan demonstrations, when separatist tendencies would have been inflamed, but before the Russian invasion ignited anti-Russian sentiment.  The highly professionalpoll shows an overwhelming majority of Ukrainian citizens want Russia only as a friendly neighbor with open borders and no visas.Some 12.5 percent want Russia and Ukraine as one country, reaching a high of twenty percent in the East and 25 percent in the Crimean south. An unoccupied Ukraine would not voluntarily join the corrupt and dysfunctional Russia. The Maidan revolution offers a fresh start with a chance of becoming part of law-abiding and prosperous Europe.

The new prime minister of Crimea – installed by the Russian occupation to preside over Crimea’s annexation — is one Sergei “The Goblin” Aksyonov, a purported member of the Crimean underworld, whose pro-Russian party won a whopping four percent of the votes in the last regional elections. Now he purports to represent all Crimea as he barrels through the Crimea with his escort of  AK-47-toting Russians (Excuse me, I meant to say Crimean self-defense troops).

The third Big Lie is that the Maidan demonstrators were not ordinary people venting against corruption and mismanagement, but vile, extreme nationalists, anti Semites, and Nazis paid and trained by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Having driven out the legitimate president of Ukraine, extremists are poised to take the Ukrainian presidency and parliament.  Two presidential candidate hail from the far right. Poor Russia had no choice but to intervene. False.

Yes, nationalists were among the bravest of the Maidan demonstrators, but they constituted a small minority. The grim list of  the “Heavenly Hundred” victims shows a grand total of eight deaths from the two right-wing parties. The others were students, factory workers, and otherwise ordinary people, some from the East, demonstrating out of conscience. As to the upcoming presidential elections, the latest polls show ex-heavyweight boxing champion, Vitaly Klitshko,  in the lead with the two right-wing candidates polling collectively less than five percent – scant evidence of  an impending skin-head Nazi takeover.

If Putin is intent on saving Europe from right-wing extremism, he is advised to invade Greece (Golden Dawn), France (National Front), Netherlands (Wilder’s Freedom Party), or  Hungary (Jobbik) – all of which have double the popular support of Ukraine’s far right. Maybe such invasions would actually wake up the somnambulant Europeans.

[Right on!  Bullseye!  All these hand-wringing liberals forget that far-right nationalist parties exist all over Europe and yet somehow the EU does not degrade into vile Fascism.  In fact, it's quite possible that, in the big scheme of things, small far-right and far-left parties provide a necessary political dynamism that leads to compromise and wiser policy choices. - J]

Western diplomats are busy harrumphing that Russia’s invasion of the Crimea violates international treaties to which Russia was a signatory, and that sovereign Ukrainian territory cannot be annexed, especially not by a referendum supervised by foreign forces and without legitimate observers. Putin’s diplomats respond with razzle-dazzle and obfuscate with claims of “self-defense forces,” “humanitarian intervention,” and the threat of Neo-Nazism. In a rare departure from diplomatic language, a State Departmenttalking-points memo labels the “illegal actions in Ukraine” as “startling Russian fiction (not seen) since Dostoyevsky wrote, “The formula ‘two times two equals five’ is not without its attractions.”

But the West is of no use in countering Putin’s Big Lies delivered as desinformatsia  to the Russian people and to the ethnic Russians of Ukraine by the Russian mass media. Only informal Russian and Ukrainian social media can fight back. With belief that the Cold War is “over” everywhere but in Russia, the United States lacks voices like Radio Liberty and Voice of America to beam some truth into troubled Eastern and Southern Ukrainian territory. Putin’s forces have blocked Ukrainian television in occupied Crimea and increasingly-occupied Eastern Ukraine. The only media presence is Putin and his Big Lie.

Propagation of the Big Lie requires – not taciturn diplomats – but imaginative media masters, unconstrained by reality and truth telling. Putin has promoted former news anchor, Dmitry Kiselov, to head his Ukraine disinformation campaign. Known for his rants against Europe and Ukraine, Kiselov has promised to “apply the correct political technology,” then “bring it to the point of overheating” and bring to bear “the magnifying glass of TV and the Internet.” (Snyder, Fascism, Russia and Ukraine).

Anne Applebaum (Russia’s information warriors are on the march – we must respond) has reported on Kiselov’s frenetic media campaign:   

“Russian television news has reported, among other things, that 675,000 Ukrainian refugees have flooded over the Russian border; that extremists and neo-Nazi militants have illegally taken over the Ukrainian government in Kiev; and that Crimean “self-defense forces” or “pro-Russian forces” have spontaneously gathered in front of the Crimean parliament in order to defend it from those same Nazis. Each of these statements is a lie.”

Kiselov’s film of Ukrainians purportedly fleeing to Russia was actually of a normal day at a congested Polish border point. The pro-Russian protesters arrive in sleek buses as “protest tourists” with plenty of “walking around money” to pay bands, organize mobs, and harass reporters and international observers, who could documents any outrages against ethnic Russians. Crimean “self defense forces” are not armed and uniformed from the local five and dime, as Russian television claims, but are regular troops. Russia’s media magicians claim with a straight face that footage of the brutal horror of Maidan is actually film of neo-Nazi-inspired demonstrations on the streets of Crimea. Wrong time and wrong place, but good television! Russian-television maps already show Crimea as part of Russia and circulate fake photographs of nonexistent Hitler posters in Kiev.

Russian television’s Big Lie bombardment of Russian and Ukrainian has left its mark. A Ukrainian businessman from Dnepropetrovsk stuck in Singapore with nothing but Russian television to watch claimed that, had he not known better, he would have wanted to join the Russian side. A coal miner’s wife in Donetsk reacted to the Big Lie saying that the choice is either “join Russia or war,” and she does not want war.  A young Russian historian dumbfounded me by asking whether I knew that neo-Nazis now control Ukraine.

Both the Ukraine and West urgently need to up their propaganda game. Our diplomats must focus, not on violated treaties, but on demolishing the Big Lie. They should not shy away from calling a lie a lie a lie, to steal a line from Gertrude Stein. Ukraine must find ways and means to deprive Russia of its current information monopoly over its southern and eastern regions and the Russian people.

Ukraine must use all the social media at its disposal to counter Putin’s massive media apparatus. Ukraine versus Russia may seem like a hopeless David and Goliath, but the truth is a powerful ally. No lie from Putin can go unanswered. A good offense is better than a good defense.

Ukraine can gain the advantage if and when Putin’s Big Lie machine goes too far. Planting false claims and even doctored or falsified film and photos can backfire. The fact that Putin’s machine lies without hesitation suggests a cockiness and overconfidence.

Philosopher Lao-Tsi said more than two thousand years ago that we do not notice a good government, we hate a bad government, but the worst government is one over which we laugh.

The most potent weapon against Putin’s Big Lies is laughter and satire. Apparently, the thin-skinned Putin is now the butt of  jokes on night time talk shows and Saturday Night Live skits.

Let me end with an anecdote that may have a much deeper meaning for the outcome of crisis. On the way to lunch, a colleague told me that the nine-year-old daughter of a Russian couple was teased at her school today for being Russian. If this young girl was subject to public humiliation for being Russian, imagine how Russian tourists, businessmen, and students will be received in the West as a consequence of Mr. Putin’s adventurism. The Russian people have suffered the loss of empire, bankruptcy, and economic collapse. They want to hold their heads high, and they have looked to strong-man Putin to give them this.

Ukraine's revolution about corruption, not nationalism or language

This is an excellent, excellent essay about what's been happening in Ukraine, mainly in Kyiv.  (HT: PR).  

Everybody, including Russian speakers, should read it!

I enjoyed this paragraph about Crimea the most:

Instead, Putin decided to help himself to Crimea. It is true that many Crimeans – a majority, I suspect – would like a very close relationship with Russia, perhaps reunification, but it would be hard to think of a better way of encouraging the most chauvinistic aspect of Ukrainian nationalism than invading Ukraine.

BTW, my own view is that Putin's invasion and occupation of Crimea makes little rational sense -- Russia has so much to lose and so little to gain by holding Crimea.  The only way it makes sense is if it is a first step toward an attempted annexation of other parts of Ukraine. Such an attempted annexation would also make little sense, since it would be so risky, but Putin "in the warm September of his years" seems to feel untouchable, and there is hardly a man in his inner circle of fellow KGB siloviki to tell him he is overreaching. 

Putin’s Counter-Revolution

By James Meek

March 20, 2014 | London Review of Books

URL: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n06/james-meek/putins-counter-revolution

This is how Russian 'anti-Fascists' in Crimea behave?!

"Fear is the psychology of a slave. I'm not afraid of anything," said this brave old woman to Russian "self-defense forces" in Feodosia, Crimea before being pushed down to the ground as an alleged "provocateur."  

She maintained that Crimea is part of Ukraine even though she reportedly has been a teacher of Russian language and literature for 50 years!

Самооборона Крыма победила украинскую бабушку. Позор.

By Игорь Рябинин

March 14, 2014 | YouTube

Putin's war rhetoric reeks of fascism

These are the characteristics of fascism: 

• claims that ethnic kinship supersedes sovereign national boundaries; 
• (and correspondingly) claims on other countries' sovereign territory;
• control of private media; 
• constant pro-state propaganda; 
• cult of the leader; 
• persecution of minorities (gays and Caucasians); 
• overt militarism; 
• corporatism (control by the state and its cronies of key industries); 
• active and untouchable secret police; 
• an army of "brownshirt" thugs that can be used to stir up trouble; 
• disappearance and imprisonment of dissidents and political opponents.

All these things exist in Russia today. Putin has set Russia on a dangerous path toward toward expansionism and fascism.

Putin wins in Russia only by escalating his war rhetoric

By Masha Gessen

March 14, 2014 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/1eBXIMp

How America's far-left gets Ukraine wrong

Here's a letter I wrote on February 26 to freelancer Eric Draitser in response to his inflammatory article "Ukraine's Sickness" in the far-left publication CounterPunch, to which, I may say, I was recently a subscriber, (so far with no reply from Eric):


Dear Eric,

I'm a proud liberal myself, and I often criticize U.S. actions abroad, but the American imperialist template in your article (http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/24/ukraines-sickness/) does not apply in Ukraine. Most Ukrainians have been begging the U.S. to get more involved these past 3 months.

The word "fascist" is a very strong, loaded term.  Before you apply it to the people who fought and died for their freedom and the rule of law in Ukraine, you should go and talk to these people. They are the most liberal, progressive and tolerant people in Ukraine: artists, teachers, students, human rights activists, journalists, etc.  Many ethnic Jews are taking part on Maidan, not at all worried that they are supporting "fascism!"  Same with the ethnic Crimean Tatars who were deported and killed by the Soviet regime: they are supporting Maidan and not all afraid that it will lead to "fascism!"  

The protesters on Maidan stood freezing in the winter ice for two months peacefully until Yanukovych cleared them by force, ignoring their calls for talks. Only when they answered violence with violence did Yanu listen, being the thug and bully that he is.  My guess is that you supported the #Occupy protests; well, this was Occupy to the 10th power. They organized their own councils, food preparation, sanitation, schools, hospital, you name it.  And fueled by hundreds of volunteers and donations from thousands of Ukrainians. They were trying to show another model of self-organization and self-governance in Ukraine, against the corrupt status quo. These are people you would feel an immediate connection with.

Have you been to Ukraine lately? Have you ever been? You should talk to these people before you call them fascists, or in some ways worse, accuse them of being puppets of fascists.  The protesters on Maidan are not all greeting Tymoschenko with roses; they understand she's a leader from the corrupt past. The same goes for Yatseniuk, Klitshcko and Tagniabok.  After the murder and corruption by Yanukovych, the main concern of Maidan has been the lack of leaders to represent them faithfully -- the same problem of the #Occupy movement.

Yes, Ukraine is an economic basket case, but it has nothing to do with the IMF, but rather stupendous levels of Ukraine's government corruption. An MP of the former ruling Party of Regions admitted as much last week: if we stop stealing, we'll have enough money for everything, he said. (See: http://tyzhden.ua/News/102978 ).  

Yes, Russia was ready to give $15 billion (in tranches) to Ukraine... but do you seriously believe without any strings attached?  The IMF at least has criteria that are transparent.  Even so, Ukraine has flouted the IMF conditions in the past and yet here is the West, talking about even more aid.  Is this not the very definition of tolerance and understanding?  Yes, pain awaits Ukraine in any case because money doesn't grow on trees, and it has stolen and mismanaged its state budget for years upon years.

As for your remark about Russia "protecting" its citizens in Ukraine.... this is a throw-away Kremlin propaganda line. Protecting them from whom?  From what?  From their own country?  Just because some Ukrainians call themselves ethnically Russian does not give Russia the right to meddle in the affairs of Ukrainian citizens.  Russia leases territory in Sevastopol (contrary to Ukraine's constitution, but whatever); it does not have an "enclave" or right to territory there. It's a renter; Ukraine is the landlord. It cannot fly its flag over state buildings, suddenly hand out Russian passports willy-nilly, or patrol around in its military vehicles; this is prelude to open military conflict because it flouts Ukraine's sovereignty.  

As for your cautionary tales of EU accession.... Points taken. But there are also EU accession success stories. Which will Ukraine be?  You cannot predict it based on events in Slovenia and Latvia. Why not take the Polish example, why is that not valid?  Also, remember that on the table is an Association Agreement, not accession. This far-reaching agreement, the most detailed ever negotiated -- over several years with the Yanukovych government! -- between a country and the EU, covers everything from the courts, to human rights, to energy efficiency.  Have you read what it says?  It basically asks Ukraine to become what all Ukrainian citizens ask for: a non-corrupt country that protects its citizens, its environment, provides health care, etc., etc.  I encourage you to read this: http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/ukraine/documents/myths_aa_en.pdf .

Again, I encourage you to travel to Ukraine and meet these people whom you label neo-fascists.  I think you will be surprised, and come to see that they are the future of Ukraine; not those who are hoping for a continuation of the past 20 years in the delusion that, with a little more Russian influence and dirty money, it will yield better results. 

Sincerely,

J

P.S. -- I do not know you or anything about you; I've tried to respond to what you've written only. I do not engage in ad hominem attacks.