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Al Jazeera
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Genocide or tragedy? Ukraine, Poland at odds over Volyn massacre of 1943
Kyiv, Ukraine – Nadiya escaped the rapists and killers only because her father hid her in a haystack amidst the shooting, shouting and bloodshed that took place 82 years ago. 'He covered me with hay and told me not to get out no matter what,' the 94-year-old woman told Al Jazeera – and asked to withhold her last name and personal details. On July 11, 1943, members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA), a nationalist paramilitary group armed with axes, knives and guns, stormed Nadiya's village on the Polish-Ukrainian border, killing ethnic Polish men and raping women. 'They also killed anyone who tried to protect the Poles,' Nadiya said. The nonagenarian is frail and doesn't go out much, but her face, framed by milky white hair, lights up when she recalls the names and birthdays of her grand- and great-grandchildren. She also remembers the names of her neighbours who were killed or forced to flee to Poland, even though her parents never spoke about the attack, now known as the Volyn massacre. 'The Soviets forbade it,' Nadiya said, noting how Moscow demonised the UIA, which kept fighting the Soviets until the early 1950s. Nadiya said her account may enrage today's Ukrainian nationalists who lionise fighters of the UIA for having championed freedom from Moscow during World War II. After Communist purges, violent atheism, forced collectivisation and a famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, the UIA leaders chose what they thought was the lesser of two evils. They sided with Nazi Germany, which invaded the USSR in 1941. In the end, though, the Nazis refused to carve out an independent Ukraine and threw one of the UIA's leaders, Stepan Bandera, into a concentration camp. But another UIA leader, Roman Shukhevych, was accused of playing a role in the Holocaust – and in the mass killings of ethnic Poles in what is now the western Ukrainian region of Volyn and adjacent areas in 1943. Genocide? Up to 100,000 civilian Poles, including women and children, were stabbed, axed, beaten or burned to death during the Volyn massacre, according to survivors, Polish historians and officials who consider it a 'genocide'. 'What's horrifying isn't the numbers but the way the murders were carried out,' Robert Derevenda of the Polish Institute of National Memory told Polskie Radio on July 11. This year, the Polish parliament decreed July 11 as 'The Volyn Massacre Day' in remembrance of the 1943 killings. 'A martyr's death for just being Polish deserves to be commemorated,' the bill said. 'From Poland's viewpoint, yes, this is a tragedy of the Polish people, and Poland is fully entitled to commemorate it,' Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera. However, rightist Polish politicians may use the day to promote anti-Ukrainian narratives, and a harsh response from Kyiv may further trigger tensions, he said. 'All of these processes ideally should be a matter of discussion among historians, not politicians,' he added. Ukrainian politicians and historians, meanwhile, call the Volyn massacre a 'tragedy'. They cite a lower death toll and accuse the Polish army of the reciprocal killing of tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. In post-Soviet Ukraine, UIA leaders Bandera and Shukhevych have often been hailed as national heroes, and hundreds of streets, city squares and other landmarks are named after them. Evolving views and politics '[The USSR] branded 'Banderite' any proponent of Ukraine's independence or even any average person who stood for the legitimacy of public representation of Ukrainian culture,' Kyiv-based human rights advocate Vyacheslav Likhachyov told Al Jazeera. The demonisation backfired when many advocates of Ukraine's independence began to sympathise with Bandera and the UIA, 'turning a blind eye to their radicalism, xenophobia and political violence', he said. In the 2000s, anti-Russian Ukrainian leaders began to celebrate the UIA, despite objections from many Ukrainians, especially in the eastern and southern regions. These days, the UIA is seen through a somewhat myopic prism of Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia, according to Likhachyov. Ukraine's political establishment sees the Volyn massacre and armed skirmishes between Ukrainians and Poles as only 'a war related to the Ukrainians' 'fight for their land'', according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Bremen University in Germany. 'And during a war, they say, anything happens, and a village, where the majority is on the enemy's side, is considered a 'legitimate target',' he explained. Many right-leaning Ukrainian youngsters 'fully accepted' Bandera's radicalism and the cult of militant nationalism, he said. Before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, thousands of far-right nationalists rallied throughout Ukraine to commemorate Bandera's January 1 birthday. 'Bandera is our father, Ukraine is our mother,' they chanted. Within hours, the Polish and Israeli embassies issued declarations in protest, reminding them of the UIA's role in the Holocaust and the Volyn massacre. Far-right activists began volunteering to fight Moscow-backed separatists in southeastern Ukraine in 2014 and enlisted in droves in 2022. 'In the situational threat to [Ukraine's] very existence, there's no room for reflection and self-analysis,' rights advocate Likhachyov said. Warsaw, meanwhile, will keep using the Volyn massacre to make demands for concessions while threatening to oppose Ukraine's integration into the European Union, he said. As for Moscow, it 'traditionally plays' the dispute to sow discord between Kyiv and Warsaw, analyst Tyshkevych said, and to accuse Ukrainian leaders of 'neo-Nazi' proclivities. Is reconciliation possible? Today, memories of the Volyn massacre remain deeply contested. For many Ukrainians, the UIA's image as freedom fighters has been bolstered by Russia's 2022 invasion, somewhat pushing aside reflection on the group's role in the World War II atrocities. For Poland, commemoration of the massacre has become a marker of national trauma and, at times, a point of leverage in political disputes with Ukraine. In April, Polish experts began exhuming the remnants of the Volyn massacre victims in the western Ukrainian village of Puzhniky after Kyiv lifted a seven-year moratorium on such exhumations. Some believe this may be a first step in overcoming the tensions over the Volyn massacre. Reconciliation, historians say, won't come easily. 'The way to reconciliation is often painful and requires people to accept historical realities they're uncomfortable with,' Ivar Dale, a senior policy adviser with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog, told Al Jazeera. 'Both [Poland and Ukraine] are modern European democracies that can handle an objective investigation of past atrocities in ways that a country like Russia unfortunately can not,' he said.


Observer
a day ago
- Politics
- Observer
A handshake in orbit 50 years ago transformed the space race
Some 140 miles above France, American astronauts opened a spacecraft hatch and found themselves face to face with cosmonauts from the Soviet Union. 'Glad to see you,' Col. Alexei Leonov spoke in accented English to Brig. Gen. Thomas Stafford of NASA. 'Ah, hello, very glad to see you,' Stafford responded in his own accented Russian. The two men then shook hands. Today, Russian and American astronauts routinely share rides to the International Space Station, no matter the geopolitical conflict that divides their nations. But in the summer of 1975, seeing two men from rival nations greet each other in orbit across a bridge between their docked spacecraft was a powerful and unprecedented gesture witnessed by millions on the world spinning below. The handshake, which occurred 50 years ago on July 17, defined the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first international human spaceflight. That simple symbol of partnership between bitter competitors remains an enduring legacy of the mission. 'It's amazing to think that two opposed countries with different systems and cultures, essentially ready to destroy each other, can somehow cooperate and do this highly technical, complicated mission,' said Asif Siddiqi, a professor of history at Fordham University and an expert on Russian space history. A generation after the orbital handclasp, the Soviets and the United States would come together to build the ISS. The aging space outpost's days are finite, and there are no immediate plans for Russia and the U.S. to sustain their cooperation in human spaceflight. The U.S. also sees itself as competing with China for dominance in space. But experts like Siddiqi see reasons for hope on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. 'Whenever people tell me that this would never happen today, I always think, Well, that's what people said in the late '60s,' Siddiqi said. 'Androgynous' Dock Early in the space age, as America raced to catch up to the Soviet Union, a partnership in space had been proposed. In September 1963, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly two months before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy floated a joint mission to the moon. 'Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?' he asked. 'Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries — indeed of all the world — cannot work together in the conquest of space.' This dream was deferred, and the U.S. would overtake the Soviets in the moon race with the successful Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Oddly, the American moon landing may have created a new window for cooperation. Public support for the Apollo missions fell, and the program was cut short after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. That left the U.S. space program without an immediate objective. In parallel, both nations' reputations were tarnished abroad, the Soviet Union by its invasion of Czechoslovakia, and America by its involvement in the Vietnam War. That created an additional motivation to jointly reassert each country's status atop the global hierarchy. 'They needed to lift themselves and cooperate to show the rest of the world: We are as super and as great as ever before. We're doing things which no country can do in a similar capacity,' said Olga Krasnyak, an associate professor of international relations at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. This mutually recognized opportunity for prestige led to tentative talks between the country's officials in 1970. From the get-go, it was clear that the mission faced immense diplomatic, technical, and cultural obstacles. There was no smooth glide path to launch. 'How do we communicate with people who speak entirely different languages, and who think differently about engineering and problem-solving?' Brian C. Odom, NASA's chief historian, said. 'On paper, it seems easy. You launch, we launch, we come together, we shake hands, we go our separate ways. But making that happen, where you don't have five people dying in orbit, is incredibly difficult.' The sudden switch from enemies to partners, at least in this limited case, caused whiplash for the public and politicians alike (a scenario that was dramatized in the Apple TV alternative history series 'For All Mankind'). Zbigniew Brzezinski, who later served as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, criticized the Nixon and Ford administrations for the mission, calling it a 'technological giveaway.' Soviet space officials, who had long worked in secrecy, had to overcome wariness about loosening the flow of information to an adversary. The country's diplomats had to ensure that plans could be discussed without divulging anything sensitive to national security. Both sides were suspicious of the safety of the other's flagship spacecraft. The three astronauts selected for Apollo 1 perished in a fire during a rehearsal in 1967, while the three cosmonauts of Soyuz 11 died in space in 1971 when their cabin depressurized. Snipes about the superiority of one side's spacecraft over the other rankled insiders of the mission. American astronauts were used to a much more hands-on guidance system with Apollo, whereas Soyuz was largely automatic and controlled from the ground. The vehicles even used different atmospheres in their interiors. Soyuz simulates the familiar conditions of Earth, with a nitrogen-oxygen air mixture and a pressure equivalent to our planet at sea level. Apollo, in contrast, used a pure oxygen atmosphere at a much lower pressure. This discrepancy was solved by the development of a docking module with airtight hatches at each end. Once the module connected the two craft, crew members from one vehicle could enter, ensuring that both hatches were closed while it pressurized to match conditions of the other side. When that process was complete, the hatch to the other vehicle could be opened, allowing crews to safely enter without risking 'the bends,' a condition caused by rapid depressurization. For this particular mission, the Soyuz was kept at a lower pressure than normal to ease transitions between vehicles. The docking module was also purposefully designed to be androgynous to ensure that neither spacecraft was perceived as 'female,' or passive. As the mission planners navigated these headaches, a deep and abiding friendship flourished between the astronauts and cosmonauts. The Apollo side, headed by Stafford, also included Donald 'Deke' Slayton and Vance Brand. Leonov flew on the Soyuz side with Valery Kubasov. The crews learned each other's languages, though Leonov jokingly called Stafford's drawling pronunciation 'Oklahomski.' They trained together at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and Star City, the Russian space center outside Moscow. During these meetings, the space travelers hunted, drank and partied together. They shared steam baths and got into snowball fights. The two commanders remained particularly close for the rest of their lives: Leonov helped Stafford adopt two children from Russia, and Stafford gave a eulogy in Russian (or, rather, Oklahomski) at Leonov's funeral in 2019. The crews were 'setting an example, by being friendly and demonstrating cooperation,' said Brand, the last living member of the mission, in a 2000 interview with Rebecca Wright of NASA's Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. 'We actually came to have a very close relationship with the Soviet crew,' he added. Strawberry Juice and Borscht Against all odds, the crews finally reached their launch pads during the summer of 1975. On July 15, the Soyuz crew blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, followed by the Apollo crew, which launched about seven hours later from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The lead-up to docking was relatively smooth, though the Apollo crew discovered a 'super Florida mosquito' had stowed away with them, and Stafford joked that a juice spill had turned the Apollo into a 'strawberry-colored spacecraft.' The spaceships successfully docked at 12:12 p.m. Eastern time, July 17, high above the Atlantic Ocean. Hours later, the historic handshake was broadcast live to millions of viewers. The mission even inspired a cocktail called the Link Up, with equal parts Southern Comfort and vodka mixed with lime and ice, served at London's Savoy Hotel. The crew spent the next two days exchanging gifts, dining together (including borscht toasts), listening to music, and conducting experiments. The ships parted ways on July 19. After all the mutual worries about spacecraft safety, it was Apollo that ended up experiencing a serious incident, as toxic fumes filled the capsule during reentry. The brand lost consciousness, and the crew was hospitalized after splashdown. Despite this frightening conclusion of the mission, the astronauts quickly recovered and the mission was hailed as a diplomatic and technical success. 'A Little Bit Messy' A second Apollo-Soyuz mission was planned, but it never panned out. U.S.-Soviet tensions rose again during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. The countries did not directly team up again for years. However, both superpowers fostered new collaborations with their allies. During the 1980s, NASA space shuttle crews included Canadian, European, and Japanese astronauts, while the Soviet Union launched cosmonauts who came from Cuba, Poland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and other countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans and Russians again joined forces in space, first aboard the Mir space station in the early 1990s. The American-Russian partnership is now the backbone of the ISS, which has remained continuously inhabited since the year 2000. That outpost is in its twilight years. Russia is discussing building its own separate successor space station, and the U.S. is seeding commercial outposts in orbit — efforts that can make Apollo-Soyuz seem like a distant memory. But Krasnyak, the Russian international relations expert, said that the legacy of this mission, and cooperative space exploration in general, remains important to Russians 50 years later. Whether the U.S. and Russia partner on future human spaceflights or not, she noted that the two powers continue to be world leaders shaping international deliberations on space. Siddiqi, the historian of Russian spaceflight, views the 1975 U.S.-Soviet mission as a forerunner for the complex international partnerships that characterize modern spaceflight, even if it's in a 'roundabout way.' 'It was a little bit messy, but the road leads back to Apollo-Soyuz,' he said. 'Other historians would see it differently, as a kind of rupture or as a one-off, but I see a lot of continuities.' Odom, NASA's chief historian, does not see Apollo-Soyuz as a direct progenitor of the ISS, or of other subsequent space collaborations. From his perspective, the mission's legacy is grounded more in the context of a time when two feuding powers extended an olive branch into orbit, with repercussions for how their citizens viewed each other back on Earth. 'The people who were involved come away from it thinking about what cooperation really might mean,' Odom said. 'If we can cooperate with the Soviet Union in this way, we can cooperate with anyone.' The direct communication and interpersonal relationships were a powerful spinoff from the mission, Odom added. 'The thing that they come away with is that 'oh, you're human beings just like us,' he said. 'You're not the monsters that we imagined or feared that you would be. You're just people trying to do a job and go about your daily life.' This article originally appeared in


Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Polygraph tests are scientifically unreliable. Here's why the Trump administration is using them anyway.
Advertisement The executive order precipitated immense pushback, both from members of Reagen's Cabinet and from members of Congress. Then-Secretary of State George Shultz I led Advertisement Polygraph tests measure autonomic nervous system reactions and how anxious a person is in response to a set of structured questions. Undermining the entire purpose of the tests is that a person's anxiety is not directly associated with their truthfulness. There is no unique psychophysical reaction associated with deception. Our OTA conclusions have stood the test of time and have been corroborated by subsequent comprehensive analyses, including Although the administration scaled back its ambitions regarding use of the tests in the wake of the 1983 controversy, government agencies have continued to use the tests. One example of the danger of relying on polygraph testing appears in the case of Aldrich Ames. A CIA agent, Ames was arrested in 1994 for selling information to the Soviets that comprised the entire US intelligence operation in the Soviet Union. He passed several polygraph tests. But if polygraph tests are not accurate, why are they still used? Perhaps the key reason for their continued use is to make a powerful statement about the government's concern with how information is handled by those with access to classified information or, in some cases, information that would be politically inconvenient to be made public. Even if polygraph tests are not accurate, the threat of a test can serve as a deterrent or as an interrogation tool to elicit admissions. The danger, however, is that the government fails to detect lies that damage national security and it opens the door to misidentifying truthful individuals whose anxiety is provoked by the test. Advertisement All of us, inside and outside of government, know far more about the flaws of polygraph testing today than we did in 1983, but no one in government seems to care. That the Trump administration, which has expressed hostility to the scientific community, should embrace a technology that is regarded by reputable researchers as pseudo-scientific at best is not surprising. Congress has diminished capacity to understand and evaluate technology. As well, we do not have a figure such as Shultz, ready to put his job on the line to defend the integrity and professionalism of his federal employees and their critical work. The loss is not just for government workers, but for all of us who care about the work of government.

Rhyl Journal
4 days ago
- Science
- Rhyl Journal
Private spaceflight ends with Pacific splashdown for astronauts
The SpaceX capsule undocked from the International Space Station on Monday and parachuted into the ocean off the Southern California coast, less than 24 hours later. The crew of four launched nearly three weeks ago on a flight chartered by the Houston company Axiom Space. Axiom's Peggy Whitson, the most experienced US astronaut, served as commander. Joining her were India's Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Hungary's Tibor Kapu, whose countries paid more than 65 million dollars (£48 million) apiece for the mission. Moments after splashdown, speaking on the radio, Dr Whitson said: 'Thanks for the great ride and safe trip.' The visiting astronauts conducted dozens of experiments in orbit while celebrating their heritage. The last time India, Poland and Hungary put anyone in space was during the late 1970s and 1980s, launching with the Soviets. It was Axiom's fourth mission to the orbiting outpost since 2022, part of Nasa's ongoing effort to open up space to more businesses and people. The company is one of several developing their own space stations to replace the current one. Nasa plans to abandon the outpost in 2030, after more than 30 years of operation.


The Hill
5 days ago
- Science
- The Hill
Private spaceflight ends with a Pacific splashdown for astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private spaceflight featuring the first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary came to a close Tuesday with a Pacific splashdown. Their SpaceX capsule undocked from the I nternational Space Station on Monday and parachuted into the ocean off the Southern California coast, less than 24 hours later. The crew of four launched nearly three weeks ago on a flight chartered by the Houston company Axiom Space. Axiom's Peggy Whitson, the most experienced U.S. astronaut, served as commander. Joining her were India's Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski and Hungary's Tibor Kapu, whose countries paid more than $65 million apiece for the mission. 'Thanks for the great ride and safe trip,' Whitson radioed moments after splashdown. Her record now stands at 695 days in space over five missions, longer than any other American or woman. The visiting astronauts conducted dozens of experiments in orbit while celebrating their heritage. The last time India, Poland and Hungary put anyone in space was during the late 1970s and 1980s, launching with the Soviets. They waved and smiled as they emerged from the capsule, one by one, into the early morning darkness. It was Axiom's fourth mission to the orbiting outpost since 2022, part of NASA's ongoing effort to open up space to more businesses and people. The company is one of several developing their own space stations to replace the current one. NASA plans to abandon the outpost in 2030, after more than 30 years of operation. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.