By Vestnik Kavkaza
The leader of the Ukrainian Choice Movement, Victor Medvedchuk, described Ukrainian officials’ intentions to reject marking Victory Day in the capital of the country which did its best to beat the brown plague of the 20th century as cynical and blasphemous. In response to this and other statements by Ukrainian politicians, the local media has spread views by Ukrainian historians who believe that “pro-Soviet and pro-Russian politicians have tried to monopolize the holiday of Victory, while every fifth person who died in the war was a Ukrainian; thus, the war is a big tragedy not only for Russia, but also for Ukraine. The Ukrainians suffered great losses among the peaceful population, as Ukraine was a battlefield during the whole war. Ukraine lost about 8-10 million citizens in the war.”
Meanwhile, the refusal to participate in the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Moscow by Western leaders is still unclear.
Aleksey Pushkov, the head of the Russian State Duma committee for international affairs, thinks that “the topic of May 9 has turned from a symbolic one into a political one. This is connected to the fact that the world formed after the end of World War II has disappeared. The system of treaties and agreements that was the basis for Europe after World War Two is now being changed.
French public opinion surveys, conducted by one of the leading research institutions, have showed that in 1945 about 70% of the French believe that it was Russia that made the crucial contribution to the victory over Hitler's Germany, but in 2005 63% of the French believed that it was the USA that contributed the most. In 2014 this proportion only increased, as far as I remember, to 80%.
“This creeping rewriting of history produces certain results and answers a certain political task. If there are long and serious attempts to create and support a monopolar world, history also has to follow this logic. Obviously, it can't be done overnight. Naturally, many historians and politicians in France, in Germany, in the US have an absolutely correct vision of the past events, but the phenomenon of mass propaganda is different, and these information viruses are introduced into the system of education by mass propaganda. Naturally, it became more acute because the US is working towards the isolation of Russia,” Pushkov thinks.
According to him, “the US has many mechanisms of influence on the European countries, pro-American lobbies in many European countries are strong. At the same time, in many parts of Europe there is a growing irritation with the fact that the US believes that Europe is just its continuation. It can be stated that the US will not manage to ruin the 70th anniversary of the Victory. 26 states will be represented at the highest level in Moscow. The Secretary General of the Council of Europe Mr. Jagland and the President of UNESCO Irina Bokova will also come. France will send its military representatives.”
Pushkov is interested in Angela Merkel refusal to come on May 9th: “Is it a rewriting of history? Is it the negation of the contribution of our country in the victory over Hitler's Germany? Until now the German leadership had not followed that path. Or is it a tactical decision? I think in this case we should rather speak about a tactical decision of Merkel.”
