‘WWII victory doesn’t bring Russia, Ukraine together as Kiev turned war criminals into heroes’

Published time: May 08, 2015 11:46 Ukraine as a new nation has to create a useable past, Arch Getty, Professor of Russian and Soviet history at UCLA told RT’s In the Now show. War criminals like Bandera, who killed a lot of civilians, are being praised by Kiev government now, he added.
RT: Mikhail Gorbachev said that snubbing the Victory parade is disrespect for the people who suffered enormous losses fighting Nazism. It's clearly not completely perceived this way in th, e United States. Why is that?

For Americans it was something that they read about in the newspapers or something they heard about on the radio. For the Soviet people it was in their neighborhood, it was in their face- their houses were burnt, their houses were bombed, their neighbors were slaughtered, their family was killed. It had immediacy in their lives. But I don’t think Americans can really understand very well, because for us, in the US, it was something that happened somewhere else, but not for the Soviet people.
RT: If Obama came to Moscow, would this be perceived as weakness amid the current global geopolitical climate in the world?
AG: I don’t think it would be by anybody who fought in the war, or anyone who remembered the war, because it was a joint allied effort. I don’t think it would be perceived as a weakness by anybody who knew anything about the war. In fact, you could even see it the opposite. Having had his sanctions fail to resort to this kind of blockade it seems patty; it seems juvenile, especially given the depth of the loss that the Soviet people felt. You can almost argue that he looks even weaker by not going.

RT: What's the attitude towards this victory in the West now? Is it some kind of inconvenient fact when a lot of what we’re seeing now is to paint Russia as an aggressor, to sort of commemorate what should be a joint victory?
AG: I think it is an inconvenient fact. But for a lot of Americans it is even not a fact at all because they were taught in their schools frequently, that we, Americans, won the war. The Soviet effort has always been minimized here, and that’s happened even more lately. By the time we came ashore on D-Day in June, 1944, the tide had turned on the Eastern Front against the Germans for a year and a half. The Soviets faced 10 times as many German divisions, as we did in the West. That is not a fact for a lot of Americans because they are still living in ignorance of who did what, who turned the tide and what the scale of the thing was. And the more governments on all sides try to rewrite history for their own current purposes the worse that gets.
RT: Shouldn't this victory be bringing Ukraine and Russia together?
AG: It certainly should, but it is not, and it won’t because Ukraine as a new nation, a new state more than anybody else has to create a useable past, a useable history. And they have done so in the most glaring kinds of ways that the Ukrainian Prime Minister, [Arseny] Yatsenyuk has said that WWII was about the Soviet Union invading Germany. War criminals in Ukraine, Bandera, people who killed Jews and many others are being touted as national heroes there for current political needs of the Ukrainian leadership. I’m afraid these celebrations are not going to do that simply because of the attitudes that are being taken.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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‘Very important to remember it was shared victory’ – top Russian diplomat ahead of WW2 anniversary

Attempts to falsify and rewrite the history of World War II are a dangerous path, a top Russian diplomat has warned, stressing that it is important to remember that the victory belongs to all the allies who fought Nazism.
As the world is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of the bloodiest conflict in human history this year, radical elements in some countries are trying to bring the ideologies that were fought against back to life, Russian Foreign Ministry’s representative for Human Rights and the Rule of Law, Konstantin Dolgov, told RT in an interview on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately the Neo-Nazis feel more than comfortable in Ukraine and this fact is extremely dangerous as it destabilizes the situation in the country,”
Dolgov said.

The diplomat stressed that these processes had been ongoing for a long time, adding that “extremism, terrorism and neo-Nazism as an extreme form of extremism have no national borders. And it is easy for them to trespass from one county to another. So the threat is common.”
Dolgov noted that certain forces in the West are currently attempting to diminish Russia’s role in defeating Nazi Germany in WWII, falsifying facts and heroizing the Nazis and their accomplices.
“The reasons behind this trend are simply political. It is a systematic, regular and a very dangerous path that many have chosen - to falsify the history of WWII, to diminish the conclusive role of the Soviet Union. It is very important to remember that it was a shared victory, we were all on the same side back then,”
said the official adding that it must not be forgotten that the USSR paid the highest price in the war, both in human lives and material costs.
Dolgov’s statements echo the words of President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly denounced attempts to ‘rewrite’ WWII history and noted that the forces behind such attempts seek to use historical speculation in geopolitical games and set entire countries and peoples against each other.

In January, Putin said in a public speech that the people attempting to rewrite history and hide the crimes of Nazism are often attempting to deflect attention from their nations’ collaboration with Hitler.
“Direct attempts to silence history, to distort and rewrite history are inadmissible and immoral. Behind these attempts often lies the desire to hide one’s own disgrace, the disgrace of cowardice, hypocrisy and treachery, the intent to justify the direct or indirect collaboration with Nazism,”
the Russian president stated at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow at an event dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of the World War II, Russia’s Foreign Ministry has published a report: “Neo-Nazism – a dangerous threat to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”

Dolgov stressed that one of the aims of the report is to raise awareness of the rise of neo-Nazi ideology and call for other countries to find ways to battle the trend.
“This report is just a milestone in the overall work that is being done, and not only by Russia but by other bodies including human rights groups and other public organizations. We hope that the report will be an additional factor in changing people’s perception of what’s going on,”
he concluded.


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London stocks surge as Conservatives claim election victory

British financial markets reacted with glee as the Conservatives claimed election victory.
Investors breathed a sign of relief as the prospect of a hung parliament faded as the results rolled in.
The outcome put sterling on course for its biggest one-day rise against the euro since 2009.
European markets are also upbeat.
Fidel Helmer is from Hauck & Aufhaeuser Bank:
“I think right now the clear election result is seen in a positive light. A tight result would have raised the question of how Great Britain wants to set up a government and under what conditions. This could have provoked instability.”
The stability may well be short-lived the Conservatives have vowed to hold a referendum on EU membership and after the resounding success of the Scottish National Party north of the border another call for Scottish independence will be reverberating around Westminster.

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