Russia’s aggressive policy is based on the Kremlin nationalist ideology that follows the basic principles expressed by Hitler in Mein Kampf and has recently been manifested in nothing else but a call for genocide of Ukrainians. The Russian nation is officially proclaimed superior to all other nations and, above all, Ukrainians. Russia has the right to eliminate members of “inferior” nations, and the war with Ukraine is only the beginning of Russia’s crusade against the “rotten West.” These are the main ideas expressed in the article “What should we do with Ukraine?” in Russia’s state RIA newspaper, and more recently, by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and deputy of Vladimir Putin in the National Security Council.
Russia started the war not only militarily unprepared, but by the beginning of the war, the Kremlin was unable to define an ideological justification for the invasion. In any war, a soldier must know well why he should kill the enemy – and for what he himself must die. The Russian POWs cannot really explain what they are doing in Ukraine and repeat that they were going “to the military exercises” – and they do not lie.
In January, Putin himself formulated the concept that the Ukrainian nation is not really a “nation,” but is a part of a single “fraternal nation” of Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians. By 24 February, it became clear that the myth of “fraternal nations” should be thrown into the basket, because Russian soldiers must kill Ukrainians, and killing brothers seems weird to any person, even if he is from a remote village.
Finally, the huge propaganda machine began to work, and on 3 April, RIA Novosti published a program text, which today is the main justification for the war (see full English translation here).
However, there are differences from Mein Kampf: Hitler still tried to justify why “Jews are bad” – the Kremlin does not do such trivia and simply declares that Ukrainians are Nazis. What is exactly “Ukrainian Nazism,” is not explained at all.
How Russia justifies the murder of Ukrainians: Russia’s 2022 “genocide handbook” deconstructed
Probably, the fact that Ukrainians have a government elected in fair elections, they have all civil and economic freedoms, there is no discrimination, and Ukrainians want to become part of the European Union. As Snyder correctly notes, “Nazi is a Ukrainian who refuses to admit being a Russian.”
However, if in 1925 Mein Kampf was nothing more than a journalistic exercise of an unknown prisoner — and there was nothing in it about the “final solution of the Jewish problem” — then in 2022 reading the new version of the book is simply creepy. Moreover, it directly refers to the “final solution” of the “Ukrainian problem.”
The entire Ukrainian population should be divided into categories. All members of the Ukrainian armed forces and police, as well as volunteers of territorial defense units, that is, civilians, must be physically eliminated without any trial or investigation: “Nazis who take up arms should be eliminated to the maximum during military operations.”
Political leaders are also subjects to elimination: “The elite must be eliminated, its re-education is impossible.”
“War criminals and active Nazis” — that is, all other political activists, officials, and many others — “should be roughly and demonstrably punished.” Punished, apparently, in a judicial order, although not necessarily, still, it would result in a prison term.
The third category is only subject to lustration — who these people are, is not defined, which means it could be anyone. A Berufsverbot — ban on the profession – to all of them.
Others are lucky, and they are only subjected to “further de-Nazification” by methods of “re-education.” Whether re-education camps will be established, as in all totalitarian states, or whether there will be forced lessons of Russification in North Korean-style, has yet to be decided. Most likely, it’s both together.
A ban on the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture, in general, is implied: “Denazification will inevitably be de-Ukrainization.”
Ukraine is divided into two parts, the western part exists on its own, there is no state on the left bank of the Dnipro, and there Russian laws are in force (that is, there are no laws at all): “A denazified country cannot be sovereign. The denazifying state, Russia, cannot act on a liberal approach regarding denazification” – and this is forever. “The terms of denazification can in no way be less than one generation.”
Putin's war is driven by ideology no less than it is by weapons. This ideology is called the "Russian World" & it has been condemned as a heresy.
Here is how the Church coined this murderous psychosis &what should be done for Russia's true deputinizationhttps://t.co/BMedGIWxcv
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) March 18, 2022
It is noteworthy that the author of this historical document is Ukrainian citizen Timofey Sergeytsev. Until 2004, he was a part of the team of then pro-Russian leader and later, president Viktor Yanukovych. After the Euromaidan Revolution, he fled to Moscow, where his talent as a Ukrainian hater is in demand.
However, it is well known that all texts of RIA Novosti are subject to strict censorship, and political articles are censored by the Presidential Administration itself. A political text of such importance can only be published with the consent of Russia’s chief censor, President Vladimir Putin.
In order to make it completely clear to everyone, on 5 April, a new post appeared on Dmitry Medvedev’s Telegram channel. Medvedev’s political weight is zero, but he holds a position without duties in the Russian Security Council – probably in this way Putin can voice his own opinion (and Medvedev has done it more than once).
The Medvedev-Putin’s opinion falls in line with the theme of “de-Ukrainization” formulated in the Sergeytsev’s text:
“Ukrainianism, fueled by anti-Russian poison and all-consuming lies about its identity, is one big fake. This phenomenon [Ukraine – Ed.] has never happened in history. And it doesn’t exist now…For freaks who consider themselves entitled to… represent Ukraine, the lesson will be not only the current special operation, but also episodes of the glorious past.”
As an “episode of the glorious past,” Medvedev considers the 1932 NKVD terrorist act when the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Yevgen Konovalets was killed in Rotterdam. (And it is consonant with the February events in Kyiv when elite special forces of the FSB tried to break into the city to kill President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.)
After reading all this, a resident of Cologne or Lyon will be shocked and then breathe a sigh of relief, because neither Germany nor France is Ukraine, and it seems that it is possible to get back to watching Netflix calmly. But it would be a mistake.
Sergeytsev’s article ends with a powerful code:
It is not just the Bandera version of Nazi Ukraine that will be eradicated, but above all, Western totalitarianism, the imposed programs of civilizational degradation and disintegration, the mechanisms of subjugation to Western superpowers and the United States.
Russia did its best to save the West in the twentieth century. It implemented its great project, an alternative to capitalism that defeated the nation-states, the socialist, “red project.”
In this way, the Kremlin openly declares that Ukraine is only the beginning of worldwide aggression and genocide. Putin will try to destroy everything “Western” — in the name of final national triumph, be it called “Soviet,” or the project of the “Russian world.”
Russia’s call for genocide of Ukrainians outstrips Mein Kampf Click To TweetThe results of the “project” are already visible in Bucha and Mariupol. Corpses on the streets, houses destroyed to the ground, sexual violence, starvation.
No doubt, if in 2022 Ukraine does not withstand aggression, the same will happen later with Lyon and Cologne.
Read more:
- Medvedev makes it clear the call for genocide against Ukraine came from the Kremlin
- Russian World: the heresy driving Putin’s war
- How Russia justifies the murder of Ukrainians: Russia’s 2022 “genocide handbook” deconstructed
- Russian soldiers gang rape Ukrainian women, including little girls: witnesses of rape survivors
- “They were shot in the back of the head.” Eyewitness account of Russian murder of Bucha residents
- Putin’s Big Lie: the “Donbas genocide” and “impending Ukrainian attack”
- Putin’s ‘Z’ symbol echoes Hitler’s swastika in pointing to a final ‘solution’ to ‘Ukrainian question’
- War diary: “Terrified of what He saw, God has left Mariupol, my neighbor said
- Russian ideology: imperialism, militarism, and racism
- Latest from Moscow on Ukraine more frighteningly explicit than even Hitler, Savvin says
