In conversation with Tucker Carlson, Vladimir Putin gave a long spiel about the history of Ukraine, beginning by reference to its Ninth Century Russian rulers. The implication was that the Ukraine and the Ukrainians have been Russian for more than a thousand years and that Ukraine is thus, morally at least, Russian territory. But that is bunk.
Russians in Ninth Century Ukraine were Viking warriors from Sweden, that is to say blood-thirsty, marauding gangsters intent on rape and pillage. They travelled South from the Baltic Sea mainly by water, portaging their boats to either the Dneiper or the Dneister River. The Dneiper took them to Kiev and the Black Sea coast. Among these Viking adventurers was Ruric, who in the mid-Ninth Century became the first so-called Russian to rule Ukraine. Thus, contrary to the intention of Putin's story, the people of Ninth Century Ukraine were not Russians, they were the same people who'd lived in Ukraine before the arrival of a handful of Viking, aka Russian, occupiers.
Later, descendants of the Viking rulers of Ukraine relocated to what is now Northwest Russia, establishing themselves in Moscow and elsewhere as masters of the native inhabitants. In subsequent centuries, the Ukraine was dominated by many groups. It was not until the 17th Century that Russia incorporated Eastern Ukraine through success in war with Poland. Subsequently, Western Ukraine was acquired through a deal with the ruling Cossack Hetmanate. Then, in 1789, by war with Turkey, Russia extended the border of Western Ukraine to include the Odessa region.
But whatever claim Russia had over Ukraine ended with the break-up of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Ukraine, and every other Soviet republic, became an independent state.
A valid justification that Putin could claim for his invasion of Ukraine is Zelensky's Nazi-backed war against Ukraine's self-governing population of Donbas. Had Putin stood aside and allowed Ukraine to commit genocide against the majority ethnic Russian population of the Donbas region of Ukraine he would by now have been long ousted from power. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has nothing to do with supposed ancient Russian claims to Ukrainian territory. It is, and can only be justified as, a war to defend ethnic Russians against a US/NATO inspired war of genocide.
Genocide, however, is merely the trigger, not the objective of US/NATO policy. The Ukraine war is a proxy war of aggression by the NATO states against Russia with the aim of smashing the Russian Federation, pillaging Russia's vast storehouse of natural resources, and moving NATO forces Eastward -- far far East, to the Usuri River, Russia's border with China.
But that looks like a really dumb hope by the now departing fat lady at the State Department, the CIA guy with the big face, and the faceless people running America's brain-dead Presidency.
I was delighted when Putin mentioned something I learned from you, CS.
ReplyDeleteHe mentioned that incident where the guy stood before the Canadian Parliament and was given a standing ovation for having killed Russians during WWII.
Putin said, "Who killed Russians during WWII? Nazis."
Exactly what you pointed out.
The embarrassment of Canadian Parliamentarians on discovering that they had given a standing ovation to an elderly Austrian, Yaroslav Hunka, who fought with the Nazi Wehrmacht against Russian forces during WW2 is amusing. But it's also sad. Sad that our Parliamentarians are such ignoramuses.
DeleteWhy, should there be anything shameful about an Austrian citizen fighting fucking Russian Communists invading his homeland of Galicia, the South East corner of Austria.
Sadly for the Galicians, their country was occupied by the Soviets and annexed to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine. Yaroslav Hunka at some point got out and settled here in the free but ignorant world of Canada. Welcome Yaroslav.
Today, the Galicians would surely wish to be detached from Ukraine and restored to their previous homeland of Austria.
"Why, should there be anything shameful about an Austrian citizen fighting fucking Russian Communists invading his homeland of Galicia, the South East corner of Austria."
ReplyDeleteI personally would be ashamed of any alliance with the Nazis, for any reason. I would never honor such an alliance, either.
The USA and Canada were allies of the USSR during WWII. We probably would not have won the war without the USSR fighting the ground war.
Are you really saying you honor someone who fought against us in WWII? Because he was defending his homeland? That is shaky.
Clearly, the Canadian Parliament was honoring him in the spirit killing Russians is a good thing. That was the only introduction the guy was given, and it was enough to make the Parliament give a standing ovation. No, that counts as shameful on multiple levels. The ignorance demonstrated was merely one of the levels.
We fought with the Russians in WWI, too. Russians invaded Galicia during that war, too. The situation of a defensive war against German aggession cannot be confused with a war of invasion for conquest, in either the case of WWI or WWII. It was probably a good thing Canada made a home for this man. Perhaps we agree on that.
You say:
Delete"I personally would be ashamed of any alliance with the Nazis, for any reason. I would never honor such an alliance, either."
But Yaroslav Hunka was not in an "alliance with the Nazis." He just happened to be in a country that was occupied by Nazi Germany.
What Hunka thought of Nazis is, as far as I know, not known. What we do know is that he objected to his country being invaded by Communists, who, according to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, were a lot nastier than Nazis -- Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned at different times by both. Therefore, I see nothing necessarily dishonorable in Hunka fighting a Russian invasion in support of, or as a member of, the forces of his own country, however nasty the Nazi installed government of Austria at that time may have been.
"Are you really saying you honor someone who fought against us in WWII? Because he was defending his homeland? That is shaky."
DeleteCome, on. He wasn't fight against us. He was fighting an invasion led by the most vicious dictator of modern times, Joseph Stalin.
Even Churchill considered it a challenge to align with Communist Russia, saying:
“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
"Clearly, the Canadian Parliament was honoring him in the spirit killing Russians is a good thing."
ReplyDeleteYes. That's correct. But the dumbkopfs in Parliament were'nt thinking of WW2 but the war today in Ukraine where we are at war with Russia by proxy.
As for Hunka, he fought Soviet forces because the bastards had invaded his country with the purpose of occupying it indefinitely, which is what they did, tearing off the corner of Austria where Hunka lived and incorporating it into the Turd World ultra-corrupt Communist Ukraine.
As for Hunka being a Nazi, we simply don't know that. Austria was forcibly incorporated into Nazi Germany, following an occupation referred to as the "Anschluss". Some Austrians cheered, some did not. Of those who did not, some left, and some who should have left (several million) were sent to the gas chambers.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, much has been said about Hunka without any apparent verification. But that he fought Stalin's army of invasion is in itself not a dishonorable thing. On the contrary, quite the opposite. What were Hunka's views about Nazi's we do not know, but that he fought with Hitler's army against a Russian invasion of Austria seems perfectly understandable and, in fact, commendable.
The fact that Hitler was at the same time killing Jews, invading all of Europe and seeking to rule the world may well have been unknown or, if known, little understood by a simple patriotic Austrian youth facing an invasion of his country by an army of uncouth Russian Communists.
But the real confusion about the Yaroslav Hunka affair is due to the ignorance of the former Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Anthony Rota, who said, with reference to Hunka's presence in the gallery of the House of Commons:
Delete"We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98."
Which is nonsense. Hunka fought not for Ukrainian but for Austrian independence. But it is correct that he fought against, not with, the Russians.
The episode wonderfully, or actually rather terrifhingly, demonstrates that there is no one in the Canadian Parliament with any real knowledge of the events of WW2.
Re: the number of Austrian Jews who fled the Holocaust.
DeleteThe number who fled Austria was apparently much smaller than I indicated above, totalling around 100,000.
The number of Austrian Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust is said to have been around 65,000.
Yaroslav Hunka was a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a unit formed by Heinrich Himmler. Hunka volunteered. He is filth and scum. They all were. He knew exactly what he was doing, and why. He wanted to do it.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't just happen into the SS because the Germans "occupied" your country. He wasn't drafted or conscripted. It is, anyway, a distortion to say the Germans "occupied" Austria. The Anschluss was a union of Austria and Germany to create a "Greater Germany", a matter of consent between Austria and Germany. Austria had been fascist since 1933.
I probably should be arguing he wasn't killing "Russians" because he killed Soviets, not "Russians". Putin is trying to get this point across...It is an important distinction from the perspective of WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and the war in Ukraine happening now. The Russians "we" hate now are not "Commies."
You do not know where Hunka was when he was killing "Russians". (He probably also killed Polish people.) It must be you imagine him on his home soil in "Galacia" bravely hunkering down against an onslaught of "Russian" invaders. Unlikely. He was somewhere on the Eastern Front. For me, whatever tiny bit of credibility to him defending his homeland is removed if he was stationed outside Moscow.
Rota added, "He's a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service. Thank you."
I consider our actions of forgiveness and acceptance of filth and scum after Germany's defeat a sign of liberal democratic greatness, and will be horrified if it is weakness and coddling of criminals.
"You didn't just happen into the SS because the Germans "occupied" your country."
DeleteRight.
But Hunka, it has been said, joined the German Army. not because his country had been forced into Union with Germany but because his country was being invaded by Russians.
Maybe that's not true. Who knows for sure what happened, or why. But once inducted into the military, Hunka would have had no control of what his unit did.
If, as you imply, Hunka personally engaged in war crimes, that is important information, and highly embarrassing to those in the Canadian Parliament who stood to honor a war criminal.
I suspect, however, that the facts of the case, although quite likely embarrassing to those in the Canadian Parliament who sought to make a hero of Hunka, are obscure and likely impossible to elucidate with clarity. For instance, Hunka, you say, was with a German military formation that committed multiple atrocities. But even if that is correct, can we be sure that Hunka personally committed acts of atrocity? It seems that when the German army committed atrocities, it was those who enjoyed such things who were incited to criminal acts while those without a taste for beastial acts were not forced to participate. At least that is what Solzhenitsyn indicated in his book "Two Hundred Years Together."
But the story is a lot more complicated than I originally supposed: in fact it makes my head spin, so much so that I doubt one could form a balanced assessment of Hunka's career, both as a soldier in the German army and Waffen SS, without doing enough research to compile a substantial treatise.
DeleteMany basic facts are elusive. Was Hunka a volunteer in the German army as implied by the story about a simple patriot intent on fighting Russians invading his homeland? Or as seems more likely, was he a conscript? But if a conscript in the Wehrmacht, then how did he come to be a member of the Waffen SS?
But what is not in doubt is that the German forces in Ukraine slaughtered something like a million Jews and many Poles too. The extermination of Ukrainian Poles, having been promoted by a Ukrainian newspaper edited by the grandfather of Canada's deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland.
Possibly the Canada's Parliamentary Hunka fiasco was intended to signal Canada's support for Ukraine's present-day Nazis, whose passionate hatred of Ukraine's Russian population is apparently genocidal.
"Possibly the Canada's Parliamentary Hunka fiasco was intended to signal Canada's support for Ukraine's present-day Nazis, whose passionate hatred of Ukraine's Russian population is apparently genocidal."
ReplyDeleteSubtle.
There's no real reason for Canadians, or their representatives, so called, to hate Russians.
There's a real reason for Canadians to hate Nazis.
Not celebrate them for their "service".
To some degree this has to do, as you've said, with ignorance of history.
"There's no real reason for Canadians, or their representatives, so called, to hate Russians."
DeleteOld enmities die hard, and immigrants to Canada bring old hatreds with them.
Michael Chomiak, grandfather of Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, was a Nazi who, as the editor of a Ukrainian newspaper during WW2, advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Ukraine's Polish citizens by Hitler's occupation forces.
Such ethnocentric nationalism in Ukraine was stoked by Germany in the late 19th Century as a means of undermining the Russian empire, and lives on as a guiding principle of the swastica-tatooed Ukro-Nazis who started the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war by organizing to massacre the ethnic Russians of the Donbas republics.
So while most Canadians have no reason to hate Russians, who after all play hockey quite well, there are 1.36 so-called Ukrainian Canadians, many of whom, including perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister, hold a deep-seated hatred of Russia and Russians.
And many of the post-WW2 immigrants to Canada from Ukraine were, to quote wikipedia, "dissatisfied with the Soviet regime and its policies." So many Ukrainian Canadians likely still disdain, if not hate, Russia and Russians for ideological reasons.
DeleteAnd the context, this is interesting:
DeleteFreeland warns of Russian propaganda after Putin comments on Hunka invite
This also:
DeleteThe Coincidences Behind Canada’s Nazi-Honoring Debacle Are Deeply Unsettling
And so much more...
Delete"And many of the post-WW2 immigrants to Canada from Ukraine were, to quote wikipedia, "dissatisfied with the Soviet regime and its policies." So many Ukrainian Canadians likely still disdain, if not hate, Russia and Russians for ideological reasons."
ReplyDeleteIf Ukrainian Canadians hate Russia and Russians " for ideological reasons", I'm sorry for them. They are ignorant and in the dark.
Russia's ideology nowadays is the same as Canada's.
At the level of economic ideology, I am sure.
On the level of political ideology? You tell me.
Putin's Russia is not a liberal democracy, but is Trudeau's Canada?
In general, though, it wouldn't be a bad idea if we all grew up. Our public policies shouldn't be formulated, expressed, or executed on the basis of such as animosities, however founded. It is just not smart. We can live peacefully and productively with people we hate.
These people we hate do have to be reasonable if that's going to work. I do not see evidence the Russians are not reasonable. Just compare Putin to either Trudeau or Biden. One of the things Putin complained about to Tucker was having negotiated terms of cease fire with Ukraine only to have those terms broken before the ink had dried. In my opinion, this is what we need to discuss. Was Putin correct, and if so, what are we going to do about it, now? We could at least establish what really happened. This war is destroying Ukraine. If "Ukraine" is perpetuating the war through false dealing wouldn't that be more important than hating "Russians"? Or hating anyone.
Wartime hatred arises in response to either propaganda, or the directly experienced consequences of enemy action. Western hatred of Putin is the result of Western propaganda. That is not5 to say that Putin is not evil. He may or he may not be. But that is irrelevant to an understanding of why we, in the West, hate him.
ReplyDeleteThe Ukraine war is the result of an indirect NATO attack on Russia instigated by a UkroNazi attack on the ethnic Russians of Eastern Ukraine.
The UkroNazis were created by the German Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck (1862-1890), as a means to undermine the Russian Empire. They are being used for the same purpose now.
I don't think Putin is evil.
ReplyDeleteI think you are correct the UkroNazis are being used to undermine Russia, though Russia is not an Empire and probably does not have imperial ambitions.
You are portraying Russia's actions as defensive. I don't think many people, Russian or otherwise, deny the right of a nation to defend itself. It isn't evil.
Another thing Putin said-- you've got to agree its relevant-- was about China. It is China which contests American domination-- and challenges, or probably exceeds, American economic might. Russia is nothing compared to China, and Russia's challenge, compared to China's, is negligible.
What I liked is Putin's utterly unresentful, unhateful, and downright helpful suggestion to the west regarding this challenge by China. The Chinese are gaining dominance by offering nations win-win terms of economic development. This is in contrast to what the US offers, which is to offer the short end of the stick every time. Other nations can prosper without any challenge to the Chinese. Why does the USA feel otherwise?
That's a dumb question. The USA needs an external enemy to focus hatred and blame outside the USA's federal government.
Yes.
DeleteSeveral years ago, Conrad Black, founder and still regular contributor to the National Post newspaper, stated that the object of American policy was to see Russia broken into a number of separate states, these, so it was implied, amenable to looting under the protection of a Poroshenkoite or Zelenskiite puppet governments. More recently, Putin has expressed the same assumption concerning American objectives with respect to Russia.
Further, fragmentation of Russia would open the way to NATO forces on the border of China leading to a show down with the America's last great rival for global hegemony.
China and the West have different approaches to those beyond their formal control. The Chinese, it seems, want respect, and fair trade, whereas the West seeks domination and exploitation. It's not hard to see which alternative the World prefers. Hence the urgent American need for a showdown with China.