It says a lot about the current trajectory of Putin's Russia ....
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| Memorial Closed |
..... that alongside of the expulsion of Western journalists, and the branding of some Non Government Organisations (NGO's) as 'agents of a foreign government', Russia's Supreme Court ordered the closure of 'Memorial', Russia's oldest Non Government Organisation, which was devoted to uncovering examples Soviet-era oppression.
They accused the group of portraying the former USSR as a "terrorist" state, instead of taking "pride in our glorious past" .... a judgement which rings very hollow, as Russia threatens more of the Ukraine, than the three areas that it, or its Russian nationalist surrogates, have already taken over.
A threat that has brought Europe to the brink of warfare, and involved the only Western super power in a form of brinkmanship that could easily escalate in to a world war.
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| The Holodomor Is Etched Into Ukrainian Memories |
Its also ironic that the threat is primarily to the Ukraine, where every November the Ukrainians light a candle in remembrance of the Holodomor - the killing by starvation - of an estimated four million Ukrainian people in the famine of 1932-33, which occurred on the orders of Stalin, when Communist officials seized food and prevented peasants from leaving their villages to search for supplies. They were being collectively punished for resisting the forced collectivisation of farms in the name of Communism.
Now, in the face of the terror of a Russian invasion, intended to reconstitute a form of the USSR, the memories of what Ukrainians suffered at the hands of the KGB under orders from the Kremlin, fuels the Ukrainian resentment of Moscow, and what they see as the terrorist state it controls.
It was reported today that Memorial shared this years Nobel Peace Prize with a Belarus pro-democracy activist who has been imprisoned with lengthy sentences for his protests.
ReplyDeleteI guess that just shows how far Putin's Russia has deviated from civilised norms in its values. Thanks for your comment Antoinette.
DeleteThe Russians appear to be inflicting a new type of Holodomor on the Ukraine in the form of a winter power famine. 🔋 Then they wonder why the Ukrainians hate them so much and resist them so strongly. Put in, and his advisors are the only Nazis in that conflict and are war criminals.
ReplyDeleteRussia had a chance to rejoin the rest of Europe as a democracy in the early 1990's, but once again turned to a drunk, then a tyrant to lead them (something it has done time, and time again in the past ... almost as though its conditioned to do so by its past history of abusive rulers), and now its committing daily war crimes in front of a global audience.
DeleteHow we are to ever deal with Russia again in the future is beyond me ... other tyrannies will no doubt deal with them but the EU and other democracies are going to find it hard. Personally I would simply stop any Russian (outside of embassy staff) entering our countries ... let ordinary Russians revisit the Soviet era that they voted for. No where to visit except regimes like their own.
Thanks for your second insightful comment Antoinette.