Eighty years after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin had much to say about it and the unparalleled devastation the Soviet Union experienced during World War II.
But he didn't say much about the other war, the biggest in Europe since World War II: Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It could be a way of dealing with it. Or it could simply be a reflection of an insoluble problem that the Kremlin has inflicted on itself in a war that has devastated Ukraine but also caused more losses for Russia than all the wars it has fought since 1945.
The war in Ukraine is confused with what the Kremlin calls “root causes.” This is largely a euphemism for Moscow’s version of 20th-century history, in which the Soviet Union helped the Allies liberate Europe and then imposed four decades of authoritarian, communist rule over much of it.
Variants of this distorted calculation include the false claim that Ukraine is now under the control of neo-Nazis who helped stage a coup 11 years ago, ousting a pro-Russian president and persecuting Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Equally important is the claim that the United States and NATO betrayed Moscow when the alliance admitted former Warsaw Pact members – the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and others – in subsequent years.
"We remember the lessons of World War II and will never agree to the distortion of its events, to attempts to justify the executioners and to smear the real winners," Putin said during his May 9 speech.
"Truth and justice are on our side. The whole country, the whole society, the people support the participants of the special military operation," he added.
(BalkanWeb)
