Print this post.Alevtina Rea | Crosspost with Cyrano’s Journal Today 
The ‘Soviet Soldier’ – a monument commemorating the collective sacrifice of the Soviet army against Nazi forces – has been toppled in western Ukraine. (February 2014) This follows the country-wide fall of some two dozen Lenin statues. (1)
“Two Ukraines but what seem like two different worlds. …
And if you want, you can call me a Pro-Russian Communist,
but, personally, I much prefer the red star of the partisans
of Odessa than the reversed swastika of the Banderites.
Although, I repeat, I am a Jew and a Zionist from Israel.”
– Arkady Molev (after visiting Lvov and Odessa, Fort Russ)
Life in Ukraine these days is full of fads and fancies, some of them criminal and deleterious, some – just outright stupid. For example, the latest craze is to get rid of all the names of cities, streets and squares associated with Russia. The effort to erase their own history – after all Ukraine in its present borders was created by the Soviets – leads to some either funny or maladroit results.
The head of the Ukrainian Center for Eurasian Studies, historian Vladimir Kornilov, in an interview with the newspaper Vzglyad suggested that the names assigned to the cities and streets by the Ukrainian authorities will not hold for too long. This is a passing fad, he thinks. After all, “The history of, say, the lion’s share of Ukraine is Russian history, and partly Polish, Romanian, and Austro-Hungarian history. In this sense, the Ukrainians have got used to distorting the [original] historical names, renaming them back and forth. For example, with rare exceptions, there are no historical names in Lvov [western Ukraine, former Poland].”
The Neo Nazis/Banderistas are not a marginal, exotic fringe in Western Ukraine, but a decisive force. Here, a show of force in Lviv, one of their strongholds.
The absurdity of this situation is that the Ukrainian nationalists, declaring their fight with the Soviet past, demonstrate [for substantially baser reasons] the very methods of the Bolsheviks after October Revolution of 1917 – they bring down the monuments and rename all and sundry. Beside the Bolshevik methods, “they have adopted the tactics and ideology of the Nazis and try to completely clean all the historical memory in Ukraine,” says Kornilov. “Everything is done systematically and gradually: on the Maidan in 2004, it was impossible to imagine that someone would glorify Bandera. But after a few years, Bandera is the hero.” Kornilov said that he won’t be surprised if, in a couple of years, they make Hitler’s birthday a national holiday. “Right now, it seems absurd and preposterous, but 10 years ago it seemed absurd and ridiculous that Ukraine would glorify Bandera and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).
As far as Bandera’s political cult in Ukraine is concerned, there is a fascinating book by Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide, and Cult (published in 2014). It sheds light on the history of this violent nationalist movement, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In it, the author says:
Banderistas with some of the the tools of their trade. For the Western reporters it takes willful evasion not to show this or talk about it, because the fascists can be seen anywhere as they make no effort to hide their ideology.
“Bandera was the ultranationalist or fascist alternative to Stalin and Khrushchev. Though the OUN-B frequently claimed after the Second World War that the UPA was fighting against the totalitarian Soviet Union for a nationalist democratic Ukraine, the reference to democracy was nothing more than a pretence, intended to persuade the United Kingdom and the United States to provide support for the insurgent movement.”
Banderistas on parade. The Banderistas and the OUN committed some of the most heinous massacres and atrocities in the war, in some cases appalling even their Nazi protectors. In cruelty and indecency—they were especially vicious toward Poles and Russians—Bandera’s fascists compared well to the Croatian Ustasha, also notorious Nazi collaborators. These are the people being supported now by Washington and its European vassals.
The refrain of fighting for democracy is way too familiar these days – in fact, it is used frequently by the current puppet regime in Kiev. As it was with Bandera’s UPA in the past, this reference brings the same result, that is, a lot of violence toward anyone with dissenting views, as well as the unconditional support of the U.S.A. However, as history has shown time and again, the cruel irony is that it is exactly the most bloodthirsty politicians who typically sing this refrain, thus rendering the word “democracy” utterly meaningless.
Rossoliński-Liebe doesn’t embellish the darkest moments of Soviet rule in Ukraine; he skilfully demonstrates the complexity of the entanglement between Ukrainian and Soviet histories.
“The only enemies of the OUN and UPA remaining after the Second World War II in western Ukraine were the Soviet authorities, who, ironically enough, implemented some of the main goals of the Ukrainian nationalists. By the incorporation of western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR, the Soviet leaders achieved the sobornist, or unification of Ukrainian territories into one state, and, by resettling the Poles and other nationalities, they made Ukraine more homogenous than it had ever been before.”
An Ukrainian fascist, advising the world what his ideology is all about.
In the end, the pretend historical amnesia of the current Ukrainian government and of some of the brainwashed population leads to outright ingratitude toward their own past. A past that is intrinsically connected with Russia, whether they want it or not. In the last year alone, these proverbial “Ivans without any roots” have vandalized many memorials and statues that remind them of Soviet times. Just recently, overzealous nationalists demolished a monument to the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov in the village of Povcha in the Rivne region of Ukraine.
A true people’s hero
Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov (July 27, 1911–March 9, 1944) was a Soviet intelligence agent and partisan who operated in Nazi-occupied Ukraine (Reichskommissariat Ukraine) during World War II (The GreatPatriotic War) and who personally killed six high-ranking German officials. His file is still not fully disclosed and until 2025 will held in the FSB archives. It was not until 1990 that Kuznetsov was officially recognized as a KGB agent. He used several pseudonyms during his intelligence operations: e.g. Rudolf Schmidt, Nikolai Vasilevitsh Grachev (Николай Васильевич Грачёв) and Oberleutnant Paul Siebert.
It was precisely Kuznetsov who managed to obtain information about the preparation of the German offensive at Kursk. He also uncovered information about German V-2 rockets, as well as about Operation Long Jump, Hitler‘s plan to assassinate the heads of the USSR, USA and Great Britain during the Tehran Conference. Kuznetsov’s bravery earned him the Hero of the Soviet Union decoration.
Nikolai Kuznetsov in German uniform, one of his many guises.
While the story of his death remains somewhat controversial, the heroism is indisputable. As noted on the Wikipedia, according to official Soviet version, “Kuznetsov was killed in a firefight with members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army near the city of Brody on March 9, 1944. In an alternative version by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army soldiers, Kuznetsov and his associates were detained in village of Boratyn near Brody, dressed as German soldiers.[2] To avoid being discovered, Kuznetsov blew himself up on a grenade. Either way, Kuznetsov died fighting the UPA – yes, that same notorious Nazi-collaborating organization whose members were proclaimed national heroes of Ukraine on April 9.
The resurgent Banderistas zeal to erase history does not stop there, of course. In Velikiy Lyuben (Lviv region), the followers of UPA demolished a monument to 5-year-old Roma Taravsky, a Polish boy who was killed by the Bandera gang. Their perverted pangs of conscience may be the reason why these contemporary rabid nationalists cannot deal with the truth. How many Americans have heard about these events or notable people? You can probably fit them all in a telephone booth.
The Ukraine’s multi-ethnic and historical origins explains some of its current centrifugal tensions.
In the meantime, the decision of the Verkhovna Rada to recognize the Ukrainian Insurgent Army members as “freedom fighters” will have numerous repercussions, especially among those who suffered from UPA atrocities the most. Just a few days ago, former Deputy Defense Minister of Poland, Ret. General Waldemar Skrzypczak, publicly expressed his outrage about this egregious law. He said that he is opposing the policies of the current Ukrainian government, as well as withdrawing his support of Ukraine, expressed earlier when he advocated to supply offensive weapons for the war in the southeast.
“The UPA murdered my uncle. They nailed him with pitchfork to a barn door. From what I know, he died three days later. Their savagery was beyond imagination. Even the Nazis did not invent the things the Ukrainians did. They hacked people with axes. And they began to kill the Poles in 1939, not in 1943,” he said (as reported by Vzglyad). “Many people do not know, and those who know are mostly silent, about the fact that when our soldiers retreated to Hungary and Romania, they were attacked by armed Ukrainian gangs. I would like to know on what foundation is President Poroshenko building the future of Ukraine. Bloodthirsty nationalism? It’s criminal! I have long been saying that Ukrainians must get rid of [their extreme] nationalism, because otherwise cooperation with Poland will prove very difficult, if possible at all,” the retired general said.
The ominous shadows being cast by the “Eurocentric” Ukrainian maniacs are many. Among the most prominent are cruelty, Russophobia, servility before their western masters, and lack of compassion toward their own citizens, just to name a few. As well, callous disregard plagues the pompous Ukrainian puppet government that presides in Kiev. Whereas Ukrainian politicians don’t want to set the Donbass region free, they refuse to provide elementary social and medical needs to its citizens. In the middle of November of 2014, Kiev officially renounced all responsibility for civilians caught up in the zone of “Anti-Terrorist” Operations (ATO). In December, the Kiev authorities stopped any budgeted payments such as pensions or wages, canceled banking services and also passenger transportation by rail to the regions of the Donbass outside of their control. Moreover, they routinely block whatever humanitarian aid may be going that way. At the end of February, authorities of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) announced the strengthening of the economic blockade by Kiev. “Not a single truck with food is allowed [to enter our territory] … This is against a range of measures signed in Minsk,” said Deputy Chairman of the People’s Council of LPR Vladislav Danego.
According to the recent report of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), food is the most essential commodity for the self-proclaimed republics in the Donbass. “It is urgent to provide food assistance to more than 670,000 people, 90 percent of whom are located in the areas not under control of the [Kiev] government,” the document says. The same report also says that on April 2 another convoy of humanitarian aid from Russia, consisting of 42 trucks, arrived in the Donbass. On April 16, another one, 24th in a row, was sent to the residents of Donbass. Facts like these are seldom mentioned in the western mass media publications. Meanwhile, anti-Russian paranoia is constantly stoked through far-fetched or outright fabricated reports of Russian tanks “invading” Ukraine – none of which have ever been confirmed. One may wonder if humanitarian trucks are willfully confused with the tanks.
Under such circumstances, the authorities of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared that they count only on the support of Russia. According to the newspaper Vzglyad, a parliament speaker of DPR Andrew Purgin has also confirmed that the Ukrainian side actually arranged a blockade of the republic, which greatly complicated the humanitarian situation. Purgin noted that the Donbass is not able to provide its citizens with food and is critically dependent on supplies from the outside, because the surrounding steppes are not very suitable for agriculture. “Food security on our territory cannot be achieved – this here is an industrial region, a land of cities, industry, and mechanical engineering. We are making serious efforts to start food imports from the Russian Federation and to find other sources as well. For the most indigent people, we have a network of soup kitchens and a distribution of humanitarian aid. There is progress in a positive way, but the situation is complicated,” Purgin said.
Meanwhile, as could be imagined, the OSCE noted on April 7 that the Donbass lacks medical supplies as well. According to a press-secretary for the special mission of the OSCE, Michael Bochurkiv, the mission recently published a report on the state of the infrastructure in the observed area. “The report is based on 55 studied institutions, including hospitals, clinics and orphanages. The facts are shocking: we describe the situation as very unstable from a humanitarian point of view,” he said. According to him, his colleagues found many people on the verge of death due to the fact that they don’t have enough [essential] medications. “The situation is similar in some child care centers, where children are on the verge of death and life because of the lack of medical supplies,” he added. According to a representative of the mission, the situation is compounded by the fact that “people do not have access to money, pensions, banks, they cannot afford to buy their own medicines that are sometimes offered in hospitals.”
Despite the dire conditions in the Donbass region, the authorities of Novorossia are full of optimism as far as their future is concerned. Per Prime Minister of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, the war unleashed by the Kiev Nazis in the Donbass will end with the collapse of their regime and Bandera ideology (translated from http://antifashist.com/item/zaharchenko-itogom-vojny-na-donbasse-stanet-polnoe-osvobozhdenie-ukrainy.html). “The Kiev clique which seized power in Ukraine has not yet realized that the outcome of the war that was unleashed by them will be a full liberation of the country from Bandera ideology, and that the Ukrainian people themselves will liberate the country from the fascist plague – those same people who became hostages of the mad politicians.” Zakharchenko stressed that Kiev politicians and their Western “friends” miscalculated when they started a bloodbath in the Donbass. By unleashing this war, they have jeopardized the existence of Ukraine as a state, and thus have driven themselves into a trap.
In conclusion, he said, “The instigators of the so-called ‘ATO’ and their foreign backers have played the wrong card… and didn’t take into consideration that the Donbass is an impregnable fortress that nobody has been able to win.”
Amen to that!
[box] Alevtina Rea is a freelance analyst and writer; for 7 years (2005 – 2012), she worked as an assistant editor with CounterPunch. Ms. Rea is a contributing author to CounterPunch, Cyrano’s Journal Today, Uncommon Thought Journal, and the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies. She can be reached at rea.alya@gmail.com. [/box]
(1) The taking down of the ‘Soviet Soldier’ in the town of Stryi, Lvov region, turns a new page in the chaos that gripped the nation in November 2013, and which has taken on dangerously ultra-nationalist overtones since then, a situation stoked by the Western alliance under Washington’s control…The incident follows the dismantling of some 25 statues of Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 1917 revolution that paved way to the creation of the USSR.
One of the latest in a string of such incidents, in Dnepropetrovsk, saw people using ropes and a saw, before jumping onto the statue – the way people did in Iraq when Saddam Hussein lost power. The writing on the monument was then taken apart letter by letter, which the rioters kept as souvenirs. After the statue was toppled, the City Council declared Lenin Square in Dnepropetrovsk had been renamed Heroes of Maidan Square. (RT.com News)