13 лютого 2024, 10:29
An Anthology of Russian Fascism
"A Nightmare on Elm Street" – a contemporary version. The "director" is the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In Kharkiv, due to a Russian strike with Iranian kamikaze drones, seven people were killed overnight on February 10, including five members of one family: a husband, wife, and and three children. As a result of the Russian attack, these people burned alive in their home. The mother with her children – seven, four, and seven-month-old boys – tried to save themselves by hiding in the bathroom.
In another house, a 66-year-old man and his 65-year-old wife were killed. This is a real "Nightmare on Elm Street" – not cinematic, but real. And the director of this reality horror is the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Do we really live in the 21st century with its moral and institutional imperatives, or is Russia plunging us all into the early Middle Ages, when people were burned alive at the stake?
Rashism and the nature of its cruelty
Why does Russia demonstratively kill and maim people in Ukraine – including children? And in the occupied territories, it kidnaps children and takes them to Russia to turn them into Russians. So that later, after brainwashing and military training, they can be sent back to Ukraine to kill people again?
Why does Russia, not even trying to hide, destroy civilian infrastructure, entire cities, the list of which is a long one – from Siverskodonetsk to Avdiyivka, and does it demonstratively?
Russia punishes Ukrainians for refusing, at Putin's command, to become Russians. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev directly, without hiding anything, says that Ukrainians, as rational people, have only two options: either to accept occupation and become Russians and live in an expanded Russia, or die (be killed by the Russian army).
Those same Ukrainians who, under the threat of death, agree to become Russians are considered by the Kremlin exclusively as "living meat" of the mobilization potential of the Russian Federation. To be convinced of this, it is worth paying attention to the contingent of Russian military personnel who are in Ukrainian captivity. Among the Buryats, Dagestanis, Russians, Kalmyks, Ingush, and other peoples of Russia, there are also people from the territories occupied by Russians. Before Russia's attack on Ukraine, these people did not even think about such a possibility in their lives of participation in a war, in its Russian form and with a Kalashnikov rifle in hand. They lived in cities where everything functioned, had jobs, and a Ukrainian passport in their pocket, which allowed them to literally go on vacation to either Ukrainian Crimea or various European countries, without visas and cheaply. European low-cost airlines carried Ukrainians to Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Rome, and everywhere in Europe, as if they were shuttle taxis.
What do those who are now forced to admit themselves as Russians receive? Men – the prospect of becoming cannon fodder in what are basically "penalty" units of the Russian army and being killed or maimed, but proud of belonging to the "great empire" that expands. And for children and women, there remains life in cities destroyed by Russian artillery, rockets, and airstrikes – without sewage, reliable mobile communication, and all the benefits of modern civilization to which they were to accustomed in Ukraine.
Putin's third, "backup" plan
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated what Dmitry Medvedev, at his direction, has been saying: that Ukrainians do not exist. Putin has not abandoned the idea of seizing all of Ukraine and turning Ukrainians into Russians. The rest he plans to kill or expel from Ukraine to the West.
The German publication "Welt am Sonntag" reports that "in the event of a potential breakup of Ukraine, the German government assumes that about ten million people will leave the country." And that "the vast majority of refugees will head to Western Europe, and Germany will be one of the destination countries."
Putin's "Plan B," after his failure to capture Ukraine as a result of a a decade-long war (since 2014) followed by a "blitzkrieg", is to bleed Ukraine dry, leaving it devoid of people. The Russian president plans to resettle citizens of his empire from Russia's hinterlands into the ruins of Ukrainian cities. As it is happening now, for example, in Mariupol or Siverskodonetsk. And you know what: families transported from the "depths" of Russia, who are settled in surviving apartments and houses of Ukrainians, are very satisfied. Even in the Ukrainian cities ruined by Russian bombardment, they feel better than in neglected settlements in the wild east of Russia.
Seizure of Ukrainian assets
Putin's economic plan is also clear and quite pragmatic. The "businessman" in Putin, who sold Russian oil and timber during his youth while on the team of Russian democrat Sobchak in St. Petersburg (link) and his current entourage of Russian oligarchs, has long been interested in Ukrainian assets – the powerful agricultural sector, partly seized in southern Ukraine, energy (the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, has already been occupied), factories producing jet engines (one of them in Snizhne, Donetsk Oblast, dismantled and exported to Russia along with all its technical documentation). Ukraine's reserves of lithium, rare earth metals, iron are important goals for Russia. Whose leaders seriously adhere to the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski that "without Ukraine, the Russian empire is impossible." About those people captured together with occupied territories, I have already said – they are needed by Putin as free-of-charge and powerless soldiers of his army. Which are already being thrown into assaults on Ukrainian positions.
Putin, Hitler, and World War II
In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly explained why World War II began. In Putin's head, it looks like this: Adolf Hitler politely asked the Poles to give up part of their territory. They disagreed. And, according to this logic, it was the Poles who provoked World War II. How does this logic differ from Hitler's operation under a false flag – the Gleiwitz provocation, which became the formal reason for the start of the war? Is there any difference in the geopolitical approaches between Hitler and Putin – both dictators accusing the defending side – the Poles, of unleashing World War II? But in Putin's reasoning, there is another big lie. Because the world has already done what Putin says – it allowed the aggressor to capture Crimea, practically without a fight. And in Ukraine, Europe, and the USA – including in the White House, in the administration of then-President Barack Obama, there were enough naive illusions to hope that the dictator seized what he wanted. And will stop at that. No, he will not stop. Neither the captured Sudetenland, Danzig, nor Crimea stop dictators like Hitler or Putin.
On the photo: The Russian occupation administration removes the Ukrainian coat of arms from an administrative building in Sevastopol, 2014.
In the West, there is increasing talk of whether Russia will go further if it breaks Ukraine. Analytical reports are received by the governments of the FRG, Poland, and the Baltic countries. People in these countries are also considering: will Putin and his militarized country attack them or not? But I think about something else: are Europeans ready to test Putin's determination and intentions on themselves? And live in a state of constant threat and fear?
Thus, first of all, to prevent ever seeing Russian tanks and "Grad" rocket launchers refueling at European gas stations and firing at your European homes – to intimidate and demoralize citizens of the free world, you need to support Ukraine now. Provide Ukrainians with weapons and ammunition – not piecemeal and very sparingly, so as not to "annoy the Russians." But sincerely and in the necessary quantities. To stop this modern madness and a real tsunami of violence and destruction of the modern world.
Блог автора – матеріал, який відображає винятково точку зору автора. Текст блогу не претендує на об'єктивність та всебічність висвітлення теми, яка у ньому піднімається. Редакція "Української правди" не відповідає за достовірність та тлумачення наведеної інформації і виконує винятково роль носія. Точка зору редакції УП може не збігатися з точкою зору автора блогу.
