Ukraine’s Crimes Against Humanity (2022-2023) is also compiled by Maxim Grigoriev (Russian language Telegram channel of the author).
The book was published on the Maxim Grigoriev’s English-language Telegram channel «War Crimes in Ukrake» and announced in this post on the Telegram channel of the Russian Ministry of foreign Affairs.
Below are the introduction and the table of contents of the book:
INTRODUCTION
The book ‘Ukraine’s Crimes Against Humanity (2022-2023)’ contains more than 400 testimonies of victims and eyewitnesses of Ukrainian war crimes and terrorist acts against civilians, committed between 2022 and 2023.
These testimonies have been collected by various public initiatives and organizations, including the International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and Their Accomplices, the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, and many others. The non-governmental nature of the work of these organizations, and limited resources has allowed only a small number of the tens of thousands of Ukrainian war crimes to be documented.
The evidence of crimes presented in this book contains direct speech — the accounts of victims and witnesses of crimes — and is classified according to the types of crimes under international humanitarian law. In each case photographs and full details of the victims and witnesses are provided, allowing them to be re-interviewed both by the media and by national or international judicial structures.
The accounts presented in this book testify to massive Ukrainian war crimes, which under international humanitarian law are classified as crimes against humanity and have no statute of limitations.
We would appreciate if you could repost this message with this book in social media or pass it to the media and human rights organizations of your country.
М. Grigoriev
President of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy
A couple of months ago some Gunther Fehlinger, apparently a “Chair of European Committee for NATO Enlargement for Kosovo, Ukraine, Bosnia, Austria, Moldova, Ireland, Georgia, EU” (mostly concerning the places where trouble can be stirred) posted an X-Tweet with an image of a partitioned Russia, under a prettified title of “Why Russia must be Decolonised” and a link to a EuroMaidan article arguing that Russia is not a federation and it is thus an open season on dividing the skin of the not-yet-killed bear (as the Russian saying goes). It does not disconcert them that the exact same argument that they are making can be applied to the USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and quite a number of other candidates for “decolonisation NATO-style”.
Napoleon’s plan for the division of the territory of the Ukraine (as of 1954-2014): Grey – Give to Poland Red – The Duchy of Poltava Green – The Duchy of Chernigov Yellow – The State of Napoleonida Beige – Didn’t partition
This is not something new. The “Drang nach oesten” has been the lead tune in the various invasions of Russia by the Western vultures. We can, for example, recall that before the 1812 invasion, Napoleon had already designated Crimea as a new French Riviera, while partitioning the rest of Russia between France and Poland. We can recall how Germany and its Axis were establishing Reichskommissariats for their “new” territorial possessions.
The 20th century was the most abundant in the attempts to partition Russia/USSR. The map below is from the “American Magazine, published in the March of 1939 after the Munich Conspiracy of 1938 (covered in The Great Unknown War. A must-see documentary about the WWII prelude. By Andrei Medvedev), coupled with the “allies'” reluctance to open the second front until it was absolutely clear that the USSR was winning, shows that area of interest from the American perspective.
“American Magazine”, 14th of March 1939
Invasion of the USSR by the USA – the 27th of October 1951, Collier’s magazine
In 1993 the USA actually got a total colonial control over Russia without engaging in a hot war, and during that time Russia was also almost partitioned administratively. Luckily, the Americans saw Russia as defeated, what with the “end of history” and other such ideas, and did not bother to fire the control shot in the back of the country’s head, as such cold-blooded killers usually do.
But the first time when the West came closest to realising that wet dream of partitioning Russia and laying its hands on the Russian resource happened in the wake of the 1917 Revolution when Russia was plunged into the Civil War, while it had been weakened by WWI. The article that I translate below illustrates one of the areas where such partitioning almost happened.
Reading the article below, think also of the historical parallels with today, of the ongoing civil war in Ukraine and how the Western intervention is prolonging the conflict, making it more bloody, than it was initially shaping up to be.
The link to the original article on the site of Russian Information Agency (RIA) may not work, as the West, in its pursuit of the the purity (of the “freedom”) of speech, blocks RIA. You can alternatively view the WebArchived version of the original article.
Back in the early 90s I, just as lots of other youths in Russia and the post-Soviet space listened to a multitude of Western pop groups, like Scorpions, Pet shop boys, A-Ha. With my command of the English language becoming more solid, I was also starting to understand the lyrics – remember, there was no Internet to check the texts, so you got by with what you understood on your own.
And the understanding was that of a warm and fuzzy welcoming feeling – the West invitingly offering to become the best friend of Russia. Or so it seemed. Later, in the naughts, came other musical preferences, and Scorpions with PSB faded into the background.
Now, many decades later I re-listened to some of my favourites from that time. And, what is more important, re-watched the clips. It’s important to keep in mind that not all music of that time had a political undercurrent or agenda, in fact, the majority of the clips were perfectly innocent in this regard. And then there were occasional musical items that failed the smell test of time.
“Wind of Change” by Scorpions seemed like a nice peace-building work of musical art, a hand of friendship outstretch to the new Russia… until 2023, when they changed the lyrics to suite the new political agenda of pandering to Ukraine, with Ukraine becoming the new target for this song.
Pet Shop Boys has two clips that drew my attention with the modern knowledge of the past events. Watch closely “Go West”. I always thought of it as addressing the wider Soviet audience, luring people into the sweet embrace of the West (that with the hindsight turned out to be a sweet honey trap). Yet, watch closely the clip.
Pay attention to the blue-and-yellow “Ukrainian” colour scheme…
…the gesture of the OUN-UPA Bandera Nazi collaborators nonchalantly thrown at three places in the clip…
Before we proceed, a brief detour into the notation of two Cyrillic letters is in order. Russian letter “Х” is pronounced as “h” in “home”, “he”, hold”, but for some reason it is noted down as “kh” in the Latin notation – the name “Khrushev” has absolutely NO “K” sound in it! So, “Казахстан” is pronounced as “Kazahstan”, even though in the Western notation it will have an extra “k” (Kazakhstan). This brings us to the title of this article: “Казах” is a “Kazah” with the “h”-sound at the end; while a Cossack in Russian is “Казак” – “Kazak” with a trailing “k”.
So with this in mind, let me present a translation of an article that appeared on Cont on the 8th of January 2022.
Good afternoon, dear readers, today I’m talking about Kazahstan. But we will not talk about what is happening in the republic, but about when and how such a state as KazaHstan appeared…
Quite a long time ago, back in September of last year, I published an article “What have the Russians done for Kazahstan? Just a tiny bit – they built all the cities of the country …” – under it there appeared such a comment that not everyone understood…
Baibek Baibekov
Alexander, It’s true, the Russians really invented the word Kazah, how nice it is to meet a knowledgeable adequate person among the rabid Nazi Fascists, because in fact we are Cossacks, since the middle of the 16th century, that was the name of my people.
YouTube continues to do what it’s been doing for some time now – “fortifying” the free speech and enforcing “our democracy” (as opposed to any other old inconvenient common democracy) – and deleted accounts of two prominent journalists and truth speakers – Graham Phillips and Scott Ritter. Apparently they were speaking too freely, misunderstanding the purpose of the “free speech”.
Already in May 2022 Graham wrote the following post on telegram:
YouTube has removed more than 9000 channels, and 70,000 videos ‘connected to the war in Ukraine’. Proud to say that several of my videos are among the 70,000 removed, must be doing something right!!!
And in July 2023 YouTube deplatformed Graham (link to WebArchive snapshot of his channel here), deleting many years of independent journalism from Donbass. Graham is currently re-creating the channel on Rumble.
Well, my friends, that day when I log in to my YouTube channel to find the ‘monkey of death’ awaiting me – meaning YouTube has deleted my account. That day is today.
Of course I saw how things were going on YouTube a long time ago, and had stopped uploading videos there, in order to preserve the channel as an archive. Even that wasn’t enough.
What to say, Graham’s YouTube channel, 2013-2023, over a hundred million views, watched all over the world, brought truth to people all over the world! It was a wonderful ride, and thanks for being with me on it – your every comment along the way I read, and hugely appreciated!!!
I’ll go on doing video reportage on other platforms, and YouTube will continue their self-determined journey into the abyss 😇
As RT reported on the 11th of August, YouTube continues in its effort in making itself irrelevant as a platform. So, Scot Ritter is now also publishing on Rumble, including his Scott Ritter Extra channel.
Donbass is the Heart of Russia. It is not just a slogan, it is a reality that everyone was acutely aware of back in 1921, which is the year when the poster below was printed. Donbass is pumping live-giving industrial blood to all the major cities that you can recognise today – Moscow, Petrograd, Tver, Vilna (Vilnius – more on it in Lithuanian Blockade of Kaliningrad – the suicidal move by a limitrophe to please its master), Kiev, Minsk, Uralsk, Harkov…
At the dawn of the USSR, the Donetsk-Krivorozhie Republic was part of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), but on the 17th of February 1919 Lenin issued a decree that the Donetsk republic should be transferred to the Ukrainian SSR with the following formulation: “To ask comrade Stalin through the Bureaux of the Central Committee to liquidate Kriv-Donbass.”
And yet, in 1921, the poster issued in Moscow still showed that “Donbass is the Heart of Russia”.
Below is a complete re-blog of an excellent, thoroughly researched and objective article about how the myth of “Holodomor” of 1932-1933 was created and neutered in the West and then picked up by the nationalistic forces in Ukraine. The article is written by Olga of the Siberian Matrëshka Telegram channel.
There is only one additional comment that I want to make about the name “Holodomor”. The article mentioned why “H” was chosen as the first letter. The fact is, the Russian word “holod” means “cold”, while “famine” or “hunger” is “golod”; “mor” means “mass death”. So the official “Western” name actually means “death from freezing”, but as will be come apparent from the article, the choice of the leading “H” was intentional.
The myth of the Holodomor is blatantly at odds with reality. Supporters of the Holodomor theory argue that the Soviet government and Stalin personally wanted to destroy the Ukrainian people. This statement is not supported by facts: the famine of 1932-1933 covered the territory of several Soviet republics, and in Ukraine it was not at all widespread. Well, did the Soviet government starve Ukrainians selectively, depending on the territory in which they lived?
The forces that are now planting their blatantly anti-historical “Ukrainianism” in Ukraine attach great importance to the theme of the “Holodomor”. I invite the reader to first get acquainted with how the myth of the “Holodomor” was created – a famine allegedly artificially organized by Stalin for the purposeful destruction of the Ukrainian people. And only then move on to historical realities.
The famine of 1932-1933 is a bitter page in our real history. But this famine, firstly, was far from the first in the history of Russia. And, secondly, it affected not only Ukraine, but also the Don, Kuban, Volga, Central Black Earth, Kazakhstan. However, the Ukrainizers immediately, in hot pursuit, tried to isolate the “Ukrainian” component from this tragic event, which affected many regions of the USSR, and make the theme of the famine of 1932-1933 an irrelevant one. in Ukraine as an instrument of struggle against the “communist regime”.
The «Golodomor» myth (intentionally misspelled in the West as «Holodomor», more on that in a later post that dispels the myth) has gripped Europe, engulfed in the fervent russophobia. Italy is the latest to jump on the bandwagon of this hoax.
As it is asked in the expanded comment by Maria Zaharova of the Russian Foreign Ministry, what about those who were starving in those lean years in the Volga basin area. The term «golodajushie Povolzhja» – «the starting of the Volga basin» has become an idiomic part of the Russian language to describe someone in dire need for help.
And the famine of those years engulfed all of the Southern and Eastern Russia. In my own family, my grandmother’s grandmother died of hunger at that time. The catch: that branch of my family lived in the Altai Krai of Russia, that is, in Sibera.
Comment by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, M.V.Zaharova, in connection with the recognition by the Italian Senate of the “Holodomor” as a genocide of the Ukrainian people
On July 26, the Senate of the Italian Republic adopted a resolution recognizing the so-called Holodomor as a “genocide of the Ukrainian people.” Earlier, a similar document was approved by the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the start of a special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
We regard this anti-Russian step as another evidence of the short-sighted policy of official Rome aimed at encouraging the most unbridled Russophobic manifestations actively promoted by the Kiev authorities and their patrons.
At the same time, Rome does not take into account the millions of people who became victims of the famine of 1932-1933 in the Russian Volga region. We invite Italian citizens to ask their government: is such disregard of facts caused by ignorance of world history or is there an undisguised segregation of people on a national basis?
It is quite obvious that the continuation of the line on the “Ukrainization” of the Italian political class and society, expressed, among other things, in the thoughtless execution of the increasingly brazen and unceremonious demands of the Nazi Kiev regime, may lead in the not so distant future to the adoption by the Italian Parliament of resolutions on perpetuating the memory of the anti-Semite S. Petliura or the Nazi collaborator S. Bandera.
Such decisions of the Italian legislators, who in this case did not show any depth of analysis of historical events, nor political foresight and wisdom, certainly make the prospects for normalization of Russian-Italian relations more distant.
In the historical work “2 Years”, the Danish underground resistance publication in the German occupied Denmark that we recently published in this blog, we took a special note on page 6 of how rumours were spreading in the West, grounded in the silence from Stalin, and how they abruptly vanished once the historical speech was held on the 3rd of July 1941. There we reproduced a fragment of the speech. Now, thanks to the translated RIA Novosti publication (a news agency which is, incidentally censored in the freedom-of-speech-loving West), we can take a closer look at how that speech came to be.
The Presidential Library has published the manuscript of Stalin’s address in connection with the outbreak of the War
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Archive photo
MOSCOW, July 3 – RIA Novosti. 82 years ago Joseph Stalin planned to begin the appeal to the Soviet people in connection with the Great Patriotic War strictly officially, confining himself to the word “comrades”, while the famous words “brothers and sisters”, “I am addressing you, my friends” did not sound according to the original handwritten text of the speech – this follows from its photocopy, published for the first time on the website of the Presidential Library.
According to historians, Stalin’s speech to the citizens of the USSR on the radio on the 3rd of July 1941 played an important role in the mobilization of the population in the initial period of the war. The text of the speech was prepared in an extremely short time span, and at a critical moment for the Soviet state: the situation at the front was catastrophic, on the 28th of June, Soviet troops left Minsk. On the 30th of June, at Stalin’s residence at the “Near Dacha” in Kuntsevo, a decision was made to create the State Defence Committee, which concentrated the full power in the country in its hands.
The text of the speech of the head of state with an appeal to the people in connection with the outbreak of war was compiled in the first days of July. The text, dictated by Stalin, was written down by his assistant Alexander Poskrebyshev using a simple pencil. Stalin also made edits and additions with just a pencil.
The radio broadcast was conducted directly from the Kremlin. At 6 a.m. on the 3rd of July 1941, the announcer of the All-Union Radio, Yuri Levitan, announced Stalin’s upcoming speech, after which he held the speech.
Ever since MH-17 was shot down by Ukraine on the 17.07.2014, flying in the direction of Donbass, over a war zone, controlled from the Dnepropetrovsk control tower, with the air traffic controller disappearing into thin air after he instructed MH-17 to descend toa lower altitude; with the fighter pilot Voloshin first making an armed sortie, then getting a “Hero of Ukraine”, and then committing suicide; since Ukraine was made part of the investigation much like if a rapist is made a part of an inquiry into a rape case; after the kangaroo court of Netherlands, when all inconvenient evidence provided by Russia was simply ignored.
Ever since that time I return to the topic of the MH-17 shoot-down on the pages of this blog – all the past posts having the MH-17 tag – and knowing that Russia will not forget this case and will ultimately bring the guilty to justice. Maybe next year, on the 10th anniversary?
Today is another date.
Which for some reason was not remembered by Ukrainian channels. I didn’t see it, maybe it was somewhere. But I have not seen any mention in the foreign press.
This picture was painted by the Dutch artist Emily Rose. Dedicated to the plane crash with the Boeing MH17. Why is memory so short, fellow Europeans?
Then the bodies didn’t even have time to cool down there – “Russians are killers”, “Putin is the killer”.
There was simply nothing known at all.
The plane just crashed…
When I first heard the term “NAFO” last year, I did not go looking for what it was, but rather deduced from the context of its usage that it was some kind of derogative term “North Atlantic Organisation” where “F” stood for “fool” at best or one of the other eF’ings at worst, and that its meaning was to describe a person who lacked any capacity for critical thinking. A week ago I learned that NAFO was an actual thing with people parading under this abbreviation. Their actions, however, only reinforced by initial interpretation of what NAFO means.
The other inspiration for the definition of NAFO being…
Anyway, at the NAFO summit in Lithuania, convening before the NATO summit, NAFO revealed themselves in the context of Ukraine, which has had a standing mental NAFO condition. As I do not cover severe mental disorders on these pages, and have no tags for that, a combination of NATO and Ukraine should do the trick to illustrate the total “Borderline condition of the Brain”, also known as “Ukraine of the Brain” (“ukraina/ukraine”, meaning “borderland”).
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas found a couple of minutes in her busy schedule, and between two Nazi salutes to the Kiev regime, she recorded a solemn video message in support of anonymous Internet trolls from NAFO – North Atlantic Fella Organization. Kaya sang praises to the “humour, intelligence and enthusiasm” of the fighters against “Russian disinformation” and thanked them “for their service.”
Let’s take a closer look at these intellectual comedians.
The community first made itself known on Twitter in May 2022. The “fellas” loudly proclaimed their goal of supporting Ukraine and “countering Russian propaganda with the help of memes.” However, the whole struggle came, in fact, down to harassment by a pack (a tactic habitual for neo-Nazi rabis-infected “activists”) on Twitter of all insufficiently pro-Ukrainian commentators and, in general, of everyone who doubts the line of Washington and Brussels, and also, as they call it there, “shitposting”. If the comedians come across hard nuts on their path, who do not give in to a tsunami of slops, then the “fellas” bombard the administration of the social network with tons of complaints in order to block the victim’s account.
Anthony Burges, exploring the theme of ultra-violence, wrote the novel “A Clockwork Orange”, which was then made into a film production under the same title by Stanley Kubrick. Watch it – it is precisely about the inner world of such bandits.
The group was marked by truly cannibalistic antics: for example, at yesterday’s “NAFO Summit in Vilnius” (apparently, at the opening act for their senior comrades from NATO, who will gather there for their summit in a couple of days). A plush shark was brought onto the stage amid hooting and idiotic laughter, in order to once again laugh at the recent tragedy with a Russian in Hurghada. the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis did not fail to deign this revolting meeting with his presence, and he, of course, also appreciated the “humour and intelligence” of the NATO protégés. At the same time, progressive Europeans are very proud that “fellas” is a gender-neutral term. In the context of this orgy, the name “cannibals” would be more appropriate.
NAFOs personify exactly what until recently the EU itself seemed to be fighting: hate speech, intolerance, trolling, spam, bullying, and all possible types of xenophobia.
Now, however, the Estonian prime minister is openly expressing gratitude towards this Internet scum, although it seems that until recently the “advanced” Western democracies were hysterical from the mythical “pro-Kremlin trolls”, who were, according to their morbid fantasies, allegedly interfering literally in all processes of state administration abroad.
This is the whole point of the innate hypocrisy of the West, which they now prefer to call for a “rules-based order”. And they modernized the rule “this is a son of a bitch, but this is our son of a bitch”. Now it sounds like this: “we ourselves will become sons of bitches, if only to spite Russia”.”
Moving on to the cannibalistic nature of Ukraine, the epitome of the “Ukraine of the Brain” condition that I talked about above is described in the following AiF article from 09.06.2023. The comments in the parenthesis are my translator notes, clarifying the terms and giving the context.
After the article there is a set of Telegram posts illustrating what the article is talking about.
“A steak in vyshivanka (Ukrainian embroidered shirt) was served to the wolves in the Carpathians”, “A chubby fan of Bandera went to the wolves for dinner”, “A lover of lard was devoured by the lovers of hohlyatina (ukros)” — it is impossible to imagine such headlines in the Russian media.
“I want to see more often how a shark devours Russians alive”
Despite everything that has happened in Nezalezhnaya (“independent” Ukraine) in recent years, Russians are not thrilled about the death of Ukrainians. And certainly, if a Westerner (Western-Ukrainian) had fallen into the clutches of hungry wolves, no one would have savoured such a tragedy.
But the “svidoms” (“the conscientious ones” as Ukrainians call themselves), who declare themselves as a part of the “civilized world”, have a completely different idea of what is good and what is bad.
Creepy footage from the Egyptian Hurghada, where a young Russian became a victim of a shark, has become a real hit in Ukraine. A wave of schadenfreude and “bubbly humour” covered both the media and social networks. So much so that it seems that the events at the front in Zaporozhye have receded into the background for the residents of Ukraine.
“I want to see more often how a shark devours Russians alive”, “While taking a subway, I watched a video where a shark eats a Russian, and smiled for the first time in a day” — this is the softest thing that can be found in Ukrainian social media. Believe me, it gets even worse the further one goes.
The legacy of the “ancestors”
As far as we know, the deceased guy had nothing to do with either the SMO or the army structures in general. An ordinary person, far from political passions, who has done nothing wrong to Ukrainians. But here a conditioned reflex got triggered — the death of a Russian is good, savouring a tortured body is great.
As you know, the Banderites of the 1940s, elevated by the current Kiev regime to the rank of heroes, loved not just to kill, but to torment their victims. Babies with broken heads, stabbed with bayonets, women with opened up bellies, men sawed alive into pieces — all these are common practices of the “fighters for freedom of Ukraine”. Such “intimidation tactic” was rapidly turning the humans of yesterday into animals on two legs.
Just like Senator Graham Lindsay said about a month ago that “Russians are dying. It’s the best investment the USA has made” (imagine the outcry and moaning if he said “Jews” and not “Russians” in that statement, but apparently the genocide of Russians is all dandy), while laughing in that Hillary Clinton-slyled laughter, so does the Pentagon reiterate that “‘Russian victory’ worse than civilian cluster-bomb deaths”, while being well aware that the “civilian deaths” are the Russian people of the former Ukraine who made their chose not to follow the Nazi path all the way back in 2014. Also being well-aware that Kiev’s promises to “not to use cluster munitions in civilian-populated urban areas” are worth nothing, based on all the previously-broken promises, staring with the Minsk agreements. Knowing that in the areas where Russia has already won, like in Mariupol, the civilian life has returned to normal and the post-war reconstruction and rebuilding is in full swing.
It is those civilians that Pentagon knowingly wants to murder.
Below is a repost of an RT article from an uncensored mirror. But before that, a note that it seems that not all of the NATO is eager to partake in the blood-binding war crime:
A US official has defended the decision to supply Ukraine with the weapons, which are banned in more than 100 countries
US fears of Russian success on the battlefield outweigh concerns that deliveries of cluster bombs to Ukraine could result in civilian casualties, a senior Pentagon official acknowledged on Friday.
Speaking to reporters, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl defended the White House’s decision to approve another $800 million weapons package for Ukraine, including cluster munitions. The weapons are banned in more than 100 countries.
When they detonate, the munitions release many small bomblets over a wide area. A percentage of bomblets fail to detonate on impact, however, and unexploded elements pose severe risks to civilians for years after fighting ends.
Asked if the Pentagon has assured its allies that the munitions will not cause excessive civilian harm, Kahl replied: “I’m as concerned about the humanitarian circumstance as anybody, but the worst thing for civilians in Ukraine is for Russia to win the war. And so it’s important that they don’t.”
He added that Kiev had promised not to use cluster munitions in civilian-populated urban areas and to keep records of where the weapons are deployed to make future de-mining efforts easier. The official also portrayed the deliveries as a stop-gap measure until Kiev’s Western backers can ramp up production of conventional shells.
Biden approves of USA committing a war crime by supplying cluster munitions to their proxy war in Ukraine.
Cluster munitions are prohibited by all possible conventions and their usage constitutes a war crime. That much was even stated by the Jen Psaki last year:
🇺🇸 Throwback to 2022: Jen Psaki says using cluster bombs is a war crime
Now that Washington has confirmed that it’s sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, it’s “obviously” not a war crime.
Yet, Biden green-lighted supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions from the American stockpiles, citing the fact that the USA has run out of other conventional 155mm artillery shells in their proxy war against Russia.
On the 22nd of June 2023 we published on these pages a commemorative re-issue of the Danish underground publication “2 Years”, marking the 80th anniversary of its initial publication in Denmark in that turbulent year of 1943. The events depicted in the book end just before the Battle of Kursk – or the “Kursk Arch”, as it is better known in Russia – unfurled and drove the final nail into the German-Nazi coffin.
It would have been interesting to be an observer as to how the German media presented the Kursk Battle – just like with the preceding 2 years, it is sure to have provided ample parallels to the current battle against Nazism in Ukraine.
Not having such a chance, let us simply commemorate the 80th anniversary of that monumental battle that lasted between the 5th of July and the 23rd of August 1943. Below is a partial re-blog of an article published at SouthFront on this occasion:
German Leopard tanks have been destroyed in Ukraine’s ongoing summer offensive in combat with Russia forces. There is a delicious sense of irony that this is happening on the 80th anniversary of the largest tank battle in history at Kursk in July 1943. Just as in 1943 these much hyped ‘wunderwaffe’ have failed to break Russian defences much to the chagrin of the collective West.
Following the calamitous defeat at Stalingrad in early February the German Wehrmacht faced a series of Red Army offensives which were designed to bring about the destruction of Army Group Centre and Army Group South as well as the lifting of the siege of Leningrad. These simultaneous assaults on all three German army groups, across a thousand mile front, envisaged the liberation of Ukraine the second largest republic in the USSR. These over ambitious attacks tore great holes in the German front lines as the Red Army advanced 150 miles westward. The German armies which had threatened Moscow during 1941-1942 had been driven westward removing the threat to the capital of the USSR. The offensives in the south led to the capture of major cities in Eastern Ukraine such as Kharkov, the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in the north the southern shore of lake Ladoga was swept clean of German units and a land corridor was established between the starving inhabitants of Leningrad and the rest of the country.
As the Wehrmacht was being mauled all along the entire front Field Marshall Manstein, commander of Army Group South, observed how the Red Army had over extended itself with its over ambitious offensives and launched a series of counter attacks which led to the recapture of Kharkov. The Red Army’s attempt to liberate the Donbass and reach the Dneiper river had been frustrated. Once the spring thaw (Rasputitsa) had set in a large salient, about half the size of England, jutted into the German front. At the centre of this salient lay the city of Kursk.
A photocopy of an article from “Komsomolskaja Pravda” dated 14.04.2014 caught my attention a few days ago. The short article was published just as the Nazi coup in Ukraine unseated the last legitimate government of the failed country, and Ukraine firmly set its course on becoming “not Russia”.
Russian Tzars Didn’t Even Think That They Were Founding Ukrainian Cities
Politicians, historians and bloggers on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border are arguing today, breaking microphones and keyboards, whose ancestral land is the South-Eastern Ukraine, or, as it was called earlier – Malorossiya (Rus Minor) and Novorossiya. Who worked it? And monuments to whom should stand here – to Bandera or, for example, to the Russian tzars?
Let us not get involved in this argument, but rather list those who founded the main cities here:
Harkov – founded in the 1630-s by the Russian Tzar Aleksei Mihailovich Romanov. Sailors who fleeing from the Poles from the right bank of Dniepr settled there.
Sumy – founded not later than 1655 by Tzar Aleksei Mihailovich Romanov. The tzar allowed
refugees-Malorossians, who were killed by the Poles, to settle here.
Kirovograd – founded in 1754 by the Russian Empress Elizabeth Petrovna under the name of Elisavetgrad as a fortress to protect the southern boundaries of Russia from Tatars.
Zaporozhie – founded in 1770 by the Russian Empress Catherine II undere the name of Alexandrovsk.
Krivoj Rog – founded in 1775 by the Catherine II.
Dnepropetrovsk – founded in 1776 by the Catherine II under the name of Ekaterinoslav.
Herson – founded in 1778 by Catherine II for the construction of the Russian fleet. The Russian Count Potemkin built the fleet and the city.
Mariupol – founded in 1778 by Catherine II. She allowed Greek immigrants from
Crimea to settle there.
Nikolaev – founded in 1789 by Catherine II. At that time Russian Count Potjomkin was building there the ship “St. Nicolas” (“St. Nikolai”).
Odessa – founded in 1794 by Catherine II at the site of a fortress previously built by the Russian Commander Suvorov.
Lugansk – founded in 1795 by Catherine II. People from central and north-western counties of the Empire came to work here at the iron foundries.
Donetsk – founded by the Russian Emperor Alexadner II in 1869 during the construction of the iron foundry in Yuzovka.
As for Crimea:
Sevastopol – founded in 1783 by the Russian Empress Catherine II at the site of a fortress previously built by the Russian Commander Suvorov. The Russian Count Potjomkin was building the city.
Simpferopol – founded in 1784 by Catherine II. Count Potjomkin was building it at a site of a military camp of the Russian Commander Suvorov.
In June I wrote about a recent black book covering the Ukrainian atrocities, with my translation of the preface. “The Black Book. Atrocities of the modern Banderites – the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in 2014 – 2023” – by Maxim Grigoriev & Mihail Myagkov was in Russian and continued the work of the Russian Foreign Ministry and their White Hooks covering the years 2013-2014: Recent Ukraine human rights violations released in ‘White Book’ report
