Da! Slava!
Vladimir Putin: Mr Shkolnik, you have just spoken about historical memory, which is a key topic of our meeting today. As the director of a federal state institution, the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War, you can remind us: we know the approximate number of victims for the entire Great Patriotic War, but how many civilians died and were killed by the Nazis?
Alexander Shkolnik: On the order of several million. I know the exact figure ˗ for example, you talked about the contribution to the Great Victory: we had 197 million citizens before the war, in the Soviet Union, of which 34.5 million went to fight in those four years, while the rest of the citizens made up over 100 million people, and almost every one of them, from teenagers on up, made their own contribution to the Victory, however small. I think that we must carry on the memory of this part of the great feat of all our people.
Vladimir Putin: Still, we need to understand how many people died defending the Fatherland during the hostilities, and how many suffered and were killed by the Nazis.
Alexander Shkolnik: Millions and millions, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: Clearly millions and millions, that much is obvious, but we need to at least have an approximate figure.
I would like to ask the Chief Rabbi of Russia, Mr Berel Lazar, to remind us about the number of victims of the Holocaust in general.
Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar: What we know is definitely more than six million. It is clear that this figure, six million, is preliminary. The worst thing is the children who died. And you were right about anti-Semitism: it did not only happen back then; today we can see its resurgence in Europe, in Germany. Unfortunately, we can also see this in neighbouring countries.
This is why everything you said was right. It is necessary to fight not only those phenomena that happen, as they say, in the political world, but above all in the ideological one, because the ideology of Nazism is the most terrible ideology that can exist on Earth.
And thank you for constantly emphasising this and talking about it, reminding everyone that it cannot be tolerated; there can be no compromise, it must be fought to the end.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, and we must see the connection between the tragic events of years past and today.
How many Jews were killed by the Nazis in Ukraine during the war?
Berel Lazar: Unfortunately, I do not know the exact figures. I know one thing, unfortunately, when the Nazis came, many towns and cities were, as they say, Judenfrei, had already been made free of Jews, because collaborators and people themselves killed Jews, even before the arrival of Nazism, of the Nazis.
Vladimir Putin: Exactly. Mr Shkolnik, do you have these figures?
Alexander Shkolnik: Yes, we found the figures: 12.7 million civilians of the Soviet Union died, something like that.
Vladimir Putin: Yes, 12.7. And how many Jews were exterminated in Ukraine by the Nazis and collaborators, about whom the Chief Rabbi of Russia has just spoken?
Alexander Shkolnik: I cannot give you a precise answer, Mr President.
Vladimir Putin: Then I will tell you: one and a half million people. Women, old people, children. One and a half million people. If in total six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, then this is a quarter, 25 percent of the victims.
Mr Shkolnik, who did this in Ukraine?
Alexander Shkolnik: Actually, it was done by the Ukrainians themselves, who joined the units.
Vladimir Putin: What kind of Ukrainians?
Alexander Shkolnik: Meaning?
Vladimir Putin: Literal. There were Ukrainians who saved other people, but who killed them?
Alexander Shkolnik: They were Nazis.
Vladimir Putin: Yes. These were not just Nazis, these were the collaborators that the Chief Rabbi of Russia has just spoken about. These were the Banderites and others like them who gave direct orders. The Germans, even the SS troops, did not consider it possible to take part in these mass killings. They practically put it all in the hands of local nationalists and anti-Semites.
This is directly related to today. And there should be nothing speculative about everything that we are doing. These are all concrete things that are connected with today, so I ask you to pay attention to this, too, not only as a person who is taking part in our event today, but as the director of our leading institution, the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War.
All these numbers are known and clear. The whole world knows that Bandera’s followers and their associates carried out this monstrous Nazi plot. But it must be shown convincingly and vividly so that nothing like this happens again in the future. People should know who the current Ukrainian authorities have placed on the pedestal of honour and who they are glorifying. After all, we made it clear that we must do everything to prevent the glorification of Nazism. And this is exactly what is happening there. We must show who the people at the helm in Ukraine are. There may be no two opinions about them.
Alexander Shkolnik: Mr President, less than a month after the special operation started, on April 15, we opened an exhibition called “Ordinary Nazism” in the Museum of Victory. It focuses on what you are sharing now.
Vladimir Putin: Listen, Mr Shkolnik, the special operation has nothing to do with that. Everything we are talking about happened during the Great Patriotic War, when people were being annihilated. Your blood curdles when you look at the archival documents. It is impossible to see it without tears in your eyes. This must be made public for people to see. Who are the current authorities glorifying? Blood-stained murderers, that is who. Monuments are being erected to monsters. They carry banners and their portraits in central parts of big cities.
I am not sure everyone in Ukraine is aware of what we are talking about. But at least let’s show it from here, okay?
[…]
[…] [A]nd all of that can be found in archival documents, including orders, reports on carrying out these orders, and names of the executioners. Everything is there. All we need to do is make it public so that there is no misunderstanding about who we are fighting, what our goals are and who our adversary is. It is not the Ukrainian people, but these monsters and their successors. We need to show this; it is all in there. Please pay attention to this. (sublinierile mele)
Iată și imagini (de la 26:31 la 36:00):
MoA ne explică despre democrația ucraineană și valorile ei euroantlantice. (memorare)
Zelenski goes on to threaten, in rather unthankful fashion, those countries which have delivered aid to Ukraine but may want to cut their losses:
Curtailing aid to Ukraine will only prolong the war, Mr Zelensky argues. And it would create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way of predicting how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries would react to their country being abandoned. Ukrainians have generally “behaved well” and are “very grateful” to those who sheltered them. They will not forget that generosity. But it would not be a “good story” for Europe if it were to “drive these people into a corner”.
I have seen such threats from low ranking individuals of the fascist Bandera fringe. They spoke of terrorism they would unleash in the West should it end its support for Ukraine. That the Ukrainian president now reinforces such threats shows how deeply he immersed himself in that mindset.
A previous Economist story shows that Ukraine has already set up the necessary infrastructure to wage a terrorist campaign:
In modern Ukraine, assassinations date back to at least 2015, when its domestic security service (SBU) created a new body after Russia had seized Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. The elite fifth counter-intelligence directorate started life as a saboteur force in response to the invasion. It later came to focus on what is euphemistically called “wet work”.Valentin Nalivaychenko, who headed the SBU at the time, says the switch came about when Ukraine’s then leaders decided that a policy of imprisoning collaborators was not enough. Prisons were overflowing, but few were deterred. “We reluctantly came to the conclusion that we needed to eliminate terrorists,” he says. A former officer of the directorate describes it in similar terms. “We needed to bring war to them.” In 2015 and 2016 the directorate was linked to the assassinations of key Russian-backed commanders in the Donbas; Mikhail Tolstykh, aka “Givi”, killed in a rocket attack; Arsen Pavlov, aka “Motorola”, blown up in a lift; Alexander Zakharchenko, blown up in a restaurant (pictured).
Hai, dragi români, nu mai fiți așa botoși: DESIGUR că dronele au căzut, dar voi sunteți plini de mămăligă (memorare)! LOL!
Consilierul președintelui Ucrainei, Mihail Podoliak, a postat un mesaj dur în care critică România pentru tăcere și lipsa de reacție, în timp ce Rusia îi încalcă spațiul aerian.
„Desigur, nimeni nu se așteaptă ca NATO să invoce Articolul 5 și să intre în război pentru o cutie de metal căzută într-un câmp din România. Nu despre asta e vorba. Dar Rusia își permite să folosească spațiul aerian al României ca să atace Ucraina dintr-un singur motiv. Pentru că e tăcere.
Poate că ar merita să fie articulat mai ferm că e inadmisibil să-i fie violat spațiul aerian? De exemplu, declarând că e gata să doboare orice rachetă și dronă pe o anumită rază, pentru a-și proteja propriile granițe.
Și, în fine, principalul punct este că trebuie ajutată Ucraina cât mai repede posibil cu sisteme antiaeriene plasate în zonele de graniță. Asta ar crește semnificativ securitatea țărilor care se învecinează cu Ucraina și ar limita capabilitățile speculative și provocatoare ale Rusiei. Avem nevoie de acțiuni simple, nu de ‘tăcerea mieilor’”, a scris Mihail Podoliak.