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Russia Today
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukraine ‘betrayed' its history
Ukraine has 'betrayed' its own history by allowing the West to bring a Nazi regime to power in Kiev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. In an interview for the TASS Children project released on Wednesday, the diplomat said the West's actions were deliberate, aimed at bringing about a 'strategic defeat' of Russia. 'The forgetting of history, their spiritual and moral values, their roots, if you like, all this has become one of the main reasons for what we are now seeing in Ukraine,' he said, referring to the ongoing conflict, which he described as one that pitted the authorities against their own people from the outset. Lavrov accused the West of trying to rewrite history by 'instilling oblivion of Russian roots' and promoting ideas in Ukrainian society that led to what he called 'social amnesia.' 'This was used by the Americans and Europeans to bring an openly Russophobic Nazi regime to power in Ukraine that declared war against its own people, seizing power through an illegal coup d'etat, calling those who disagreed with this coup terrorists, and starting a real war against them,' he said. READ MORE: Israel hits out at Ukrainian glorification of WWII Nazi collaborator Lavrov noted that among European countries, there are two views on confronting their own history with Nazism – some seek to 'quickly erase the pages of their national shame,' while others see Nazi ideology as a 'tool for maintaining their positions on the European political scene.' He pledged that Russia would continue to fight both trends. 'Our ambition is to ensure that this sacred memory never leaves history, never leaves the memory of all generations, that it remains unchanged. And we are convinced of our historical, moral and human rectitude,' he concluded. Commemorations of World War II-era nationalist figures with ties to Nazi Germany have been common in Ukraine. Ukrainians hold annual torchlight marches in honor of Stepan Bandera, a leader in the militant Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and was involved in the massacre of more than 100,000 Poles, Jews, Russians, and Soviet-aligned Ukrainians. Less than two months ago, the Ukrainian city of Rivne marked the 120th birthday of Ulas Samchuk, a Nazi collaborator and anti-Semitic propagandist who welcomed the mass killings of Jews during the war. READ MORE: German media told to conceal Nazi symbols in Ukraine – Moscow Moscow has repeatedly warned of a Nazi revival in Ukraine, citing 'denazification' as a central aim of its military operation against Kiev. Western officials and media, however, have largely downplayed such concerns, often dismissing the allegations as 'Russian propaganda.'
Russia Today
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukrainian city honors Nazi collaborator who applauded Holocaust
The Ukrainian city of Rivne has celebrated the 120th birthday of Nazi collaborator and prominent anti-Semitic propagandist Ulas Samchuk, who welcomed the mass killings of Jews during World War II. Russia has consistently claimed that the current Ukrainian leadership has been embracing neo-Nazi ideology and whitewashing known WWII-era collaborators. When the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated into open hostilities in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin named the 'denazification' of Ukraine as one of the objectives of his special operation. On Thursday, regional officials in Rivne held a ceremony to commemorate Samchuk, who was born in the area, presenting a book: 'Ulas Samchuk - Warrior of the Word.' According to local media, it includes personal letters he wrote and is part of a wider project to include his works in the school curriculum across Ukraine. The publications described him as a writer, a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and the editor of the 'Volyn' newspaper during World War II. In 2019, the Israeli embassy in Ukraine asked the country's parliament to remove Samchuk from its 'List of Heroes,' describing him as among those who 'oversaw massacres of Jews or supported the Nazi regime.' In an article last September, the Russian Foreign Ministry characterized Samchuk as a 'Nazi writer and member of the Nazi organizations,' who 'published articles calling for killing Jews.' This description echoes the assessments of the head of Ukraine's Jewish Committee as well as some Ukrainian historians, who have pointed out that in his newspaper, Samchuk routinely wrote about 'Jewish chimpanzees' and the need to cleanse the country of Jews and Poles. Samchuk reportedly welcomed the news of Nazi German troops rounding up Kiev's Jews and subsequently massacring them at the infamous Babi Yar ravine as a 'great day' when the 'German authorities [met] the fervent wishes of Ukrainians.' In nearby Lviv, a Hanukkah menorah installed in memory of local Jews murdered by the Nazis was vandalized in early January, as nationalists celebrated the birthday of prominent World War II Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera. A month before, Kiev authorities had renamed a street after another Nazi collaborator who had aided the Germans in massacring the Jews of Zhitomir Region, Taras Borovets. Holocaust scholar Marta Gavryshko denounced the decision as a 'symptom of a troubling phenomenon' of Ukraine making the 'regional cult of nationalistic heroes who collaborated with Nazis in the Holocaust' national policy. According to Russian estimates, approximately 1.5 million Jews perished during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine.
