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Putin’s Latest Obsession: A New World War II Narrative

Rogue Valley

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Putin’s Latest Obsession: A New World War II Narrative

SsWyhXbxvq2NUFQx9CYIsduNwFi1tqWX.jpg

Putin with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu.

1/10/20
The 75th anniversary of the end of World War II was the only forthcoming event Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned in his New Year’s address to the nation. Creating an alternative to the dominant Western narrative about that war is key to Putin’s way of securing Russia’s place in the world. Putin has appeared lately to be obsessed with World War II, discoursing about it at every opportunity — during an informal session with other post-Soviet leaders, at his big end-of-year press conference, in a meeting with Russian tycoons, at the Defense Ministry in the presence of top generals. He’s talked time and again about delving into archival documents; he’s mentioned working on a scholarly article about the war. Even for a leader who has made the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis (seen by many as a triumph over a rotten Europe) a cornerstone of the new Russian national identity, Putin’s evident emotional involvement and the sheer time investment are unusual. That’s because Putin, his foreign policy advisers and his propagandists see the dominant narrative of the war shifting against Russia. Throughout the Cold War’s worst years, the victorious alliance of the Soviet Union, the U.S., the U.K. and France was a reminder that cooperation was possible. There is, however, a tendency to dump that baggage now and to treat Russia as a villain without any qualifications. Late last year, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was asked to recall when he’d changed his mind. His response: What I’ve really changed my mind on was whether it is possible to reset with Russia. I really thought, as I think many foreign secretaries and prime ministers have thought before, that we could start again with Russia. That it’s a great country we fought with against fascism. It was very, very disappointing that I was wrong.

The Kremlin is extremely sensitive to such signals — not just for domestic propaganda reasons, but because Russia’s global power is still based on some important spoils of World War II. As one of the nations that vanquished Hitler, the Soviet Union didn’t just win control over Eastern Europe, it received a place atop the postwar global order and an all-important permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. If the Soviet Union is primarily seen as Hitler’s ally at the outset of the war — which of course it was — rather than a Hitler conqueror at its conclusion, if Russia has never really been on the right side of history, it has no claim to moral authority and to a role as a global arbiter. To Putin, that role is, in a way, as important as Russia’s nuclear shield. The ability to say authoritatively what’s right and what’s wrong is, after all, a major part of what makes the U.S. a global superpower. Kremlin-linked historians and propagandists see the shifting narrative as the result of Eastern Europe’s increased role in the continent as a whole. Since, of all European nations, Poland and the Baltic states are the most concerned with the policy and politics of memory, their loud voices have drawn the European political elite’s attention away from the victory and toward the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, in which Nazi Germany and Josef Stalin’s USSR divided up spheres of influence in Europe. One result of this was a European Parliament resolution last year that equates the Soviet regime with the Nazi one in terms of the damage done to Europe, a document that has been a strong irritant to the Russian leadership and to Putin personally. Much of Putin’s foreign-policy activity this year will be directed toward trying to rebuild a more Russia-centric concept of the victory over the Nazis. This is territory where Putin isn’t prepared to give ground, and given the enormous complexity of the historical material as well as the cross-currents of Israeli, U.S. and European memory politics, he can put up quite a diplomatic and propaganda fight.

The reality is Mr. Putin, Russia willingly joined with Nazi Germany in 1939 to carve up and subjugate Poland and the Baltic States.

Operation Barbarossa doesn't erase that despicable and bloody chapter of Russia's history.
 
Putin’s Latest Obsession: A New World War II Narrative

SsWyhXbxvq2NUFQx9CYIsduNwFi1tqWX.jpg

Putin with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu.



The reality is Mr. Putin, Russia willingly joined with Nazi Germany in 1939 to carve up and subjugate Poland and the Baltic States.

Operation Barbarossa doesn't erase that despicable and bloody chapter of Russia's history.

I wonder if it ever occurred to Putin to leave the past lie and concentrate on building good will in the present.
 
I wonder if it ever occurred to Putin to leave the past lie and concentrate on building good will in the present.

No. Putin is ex-KGB. He characterizes the fall of the Soviet Union as the greatest catastrophe to ever befall Russia. He longs for a return to the Soviet Empire.

With Putin, tangible results are more important than Western perceptions (pariah state).

Ergo, his wars against Ukraine (a former possession of the Soviet Empire) and Syria (to make Russia a ME player again like it was before the disaster of the Six Day War).
 
Putin’s Latest Obsession: A New World War II Narrative

SsWyhXbxvq2NUFQx9CYIsduNwFi1tqWX.jpg

Putin with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu.



The reality is Mr. Putin, Russia willingly joined with Nazi Germany in 1939 to carve up and subjugate Poland and the Baltic States.

Operation Barbarossa doesn't erase that despicable and bloody chapter of Russia's history.

Eh, this is really not that new of an idea. The Russians, just like the Soviets before, long maintained that their non-aggression pact was a necessary strategic move in light of the Munich Agreement. Putin's latest commentary doesn't seem to divulge from that too much, it's just now social media gives it a new platform to speak about it.
 
Eh, this is really not that new of an idea. The Russians, just like the Soviets before, long maintained that their non-aggression pact was a necessary strategic move in light of the Munich Agreement. Putin's latest commentary doesn't seem to divulge from that too much, it's just now social media gives it a new platform to speak about it.

True enough. But regardless of its heritage, this narrative must still be challenged.

Especially today, when too many people allow trolls to do their thinking on social media.
 
Putin’s Latest Obsession: A New World War II Narrative

SsWyhXbxvq2NUFQx9CYIsduNwFi1tqWX.jpg

Putin with Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu.



The reality is Mr. Putin, Russia willingly joined with Nazi Germany in 1939 to carve up and subjugate Poland and the Baltic States.

Operation Barbarossa doesn't erase that despicable and bloody chapter of Russia's history.

The reality is that many people in Eastern Europe happily joined with the Nazis to try to exterminate their local Jewish populations.

Not only that, but many of those folks are now heralded as “heroes” because they used anti communism to justify their genocidal actions.
 
As I was saying about trolls.
 
C7A40E9C-FD3F-4AAD-9D10-E0048CCD67AF_w1080_h608.jpg


Left: The German and Russian Nazis carving up Poland and the Baltic States in 1939.
Right: The Russian Nazi who wants to do so again today.
 
C7A40E9C-FD3F-4AAD-9D10-E0048CCD67AF_w1080_h608.jpg


Left: The German and Russian Nazis carving up Poland and the Baltic States in 1939.
Right: The Russian Nazi who wants to do so again today.


Provide evidence of Putin planning to invade Poland.

14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) - Wikipedia

“ The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) is today honored by many Ukrainian nationalists.[58] Since 2010 every year on April 28 a march is held to celebrate the foundation of the division.[59] In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[60] ”

“ The German Operation Barbarossa of 1941 brought together native Ukrainians of the Soviet Ukraine, and the prewar territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union as well. To the north-east, they fell under the German administrative control of Reichskommissariat Ukraine; and to the south-west, under the Nazi General Government. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) volunteered to assist the Wehrmacht.[3] In total, the Germans enlisted 250,000 native Ukrainians for duty in five separate formations including the Nationalist Military Detachments (VVN), the Brotherhoods of Ukrainian Nationalists (DUN), the Galician Division of the Waffen SS, the Ukrainian Liberation Army (UVV), and the Ukrainian National Army (Ukrainische Nationalarmee, UNA).[3][11] By the end of 1942, in Reichskommissariat Ukraine alone, the SS employed 238,000 Ukrainians and only 15,000 Germans at a ratio of 1 to 16.[12]

Holocaust in Reichskommissariat Ukraine: the map
The atrocities against the Jewish population during the Holocaust in Ukraine started within a few days of the beginning of the Nazi occupation. There are indications that the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, formed on 20 August 1941,[13] was used in the round-up of Jews for the Babi Yar massacre,[14][15] and in other massacres in cities and towns of modern-day Ukraine, such as Stepan,[16] Lviv, Lutsk, and Zhytomyr.[17] On 1 September 1941, Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn wrote: "The element that settled our cities (Jews)... must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved."[18]
Reinforced through religious prejudice, anti-Semitism had turned violent in the first days of the German attack on the Soviet Union. Some Ukrainians derived nationalist resentment from the belief that the Jews had worked for Polish landlords.[19] The NKVD prisoner massacres by the Soviet secret police retreating eastward were blamed on the Jews. Antisemitic canard of Jewish Bolshevism provided justification for the revenge killings by the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian People's Militia which accompanied German Einsatzgruppen moving east.[19] In Boryslav (prewar Borysław, Poland, with population 41,500), the SS commander gave an enraged crowd – who had seen bodies of men murdered by NKVD and laid out in the town square – 24 hours to act as they wished against the Polish Jews; they were forced to clean the dead bodies, to dance, and then killed by beating with axes, pipes, etc. The same type of mass murders took place in Brzezany. During Lviv pogroms, some 7,000 Jews were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists led by People's Militia.[19][20][21] As late as 1945, Ukrainian militants were still rounding up and murdering Jews.[22]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_collaboration_with_Nazi_Germany#SS_Division_"Galizien"
 
C7A40E9C-FD3F-4AAD-9D10-E0048CCD67AF_w1080_h608.jpg


Left: The German and Russian Nazis carving up Poland and the Baltic States in 1939.
Right: The Russian Nazi who wants to do so again today.
 
C7A40E9C-FD3F-4AAD-9D10-E0048CCD67AF_w1080_h608.jpg


Left: The German and Russian Nazis carving up Poland and the Baltic States in 1939.
Right: The Russian Nazi who wants to do so again today.

Provide evidence of Putin planning to invade Poland.

14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) - Wikipedia

“ The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) is today honored by many Ukrainian nationalists.[58] Since 2010 every year on April 28 a march is held to celebrate the foundation of the division.[59] In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[60] ”

“ The German Operation Barbarossa of 1941 brought together native Ukrainians of the Soviet Ukraine, and the prewar territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union as well. To the north-east, they fell under the German administrative control of Reichskommissariat Ukraine; and to the south-west, under the Nazi General Government. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) volunteered to assist the Wehrmacht.[3] In total, the Germans enlisted 250,000 native Ukrainians for duty in five separate formations including the Nationalist Military Detachments (VVN), the Brotherhoods of Ukrainian Nationalists (DUN), the Galician Division of the Waffen SS, the Ukrainian Liberation Army (UVV), and the Ukrainian National Army (Ukrainische Nationalarmee, UNA).[3][11] By the end of 1942, in Reichskommissariat Ukraine alone, the SS employed 238,000 Ukrainians and only 15,000 Germans at a ratio of 1 to 16.[12]

Holocaust in Reichskommissariat Ukraine: the map
The atrocities against the Jewish population during the Holocaust in Ukraine started within a few days of the beginning of the Nazi occupation. There are indications that the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, formed on 20 August 1941,[13] was used in the round-up of Jews for the Babi Yar massacre,[14][15] and in other massacres in cities and towns of modern-day Ukraine, such as Stepan,[16] Lviv, Lutsk, and Zhytomyr.[17] On 1 September 1941, Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian newspaper Volhyn wrote: "The element that settled our cities (Jews)... must disappear completely from our cities. The Jewish problem is already in the process of being solved."[18]
Reinforced through religious prejudice, anti-Semitism had turned violent in the first days of the German attack on the Soviet Union. Some Ukrainians derived nationalist resentment from the belief that the Jews had worked for Polish landlords.[19] The NKVD prisoner massacres by the Soviet secret police retreating eastward were blamed on the Jews. Antisemitic canard of Jewish Bolshevism provided justification for the revenge killings by the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian People's Militia which accompanied German Einsatzgruppen moving east.[19] In Boryslav (prewar Borysław, Poland, with population 41,500), the SS commander gave an enraged crowd – who had seen bodies of men murdered by NKVD and laid out in the town square – 24 hours to act as they wished against the Polish Jews; they were forced to clean the dead bodies, to dance, and then killed by beating with axes, pipes, etc. The same type of mass murders took place in Brzezany. During Lviv pogroms, some 7,000 Jews were murdered by Ukrainian nationalists led by People's Militia.[19][20][21] As late as 1945, Ukrainian militants were still rounding up and murdering Jews.[22]”

Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany - Wikipedia ion_"Galizien"
 
Putler´s next plan for invasion: Baltics, Norway or Belarus/Kazakhstan, in the case of putler´s attack on Belarus/Baltics Poland will be involved automatically
When Putin Invades the Baltics | Center for a New American Security
Russia’s Next Land Grab Won’t Be in an Ex-Soviet State. It Will Be in Europe. – Foreign Policy

If Poland tries to go to war over Belarus it is going to find itself rather abruptly on its own.

NATO is not an alliance for promoting wars of aggression based on racial delusions about “Asiatic hordes”.

Saber rattling about meaningless Arctic islands is not the equivalent to invading Norway....which is not Poland.

And no, the US is not going to go to war over Kazakhstan
 
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