Monthly Archives: April 2015

Denouncing everything Soviet? Then return the territories.

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Below is my translation from Russian of an article, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 15th of April 2015, written by Alexander Kolesnichenko and Ekaterina Mirnaja.

Not only the TV series “Seventeen Moments of Spring” were banned in Ukraine, but also the medals and orders of the veterans of Great Patriotic War. Incidentally, it is now also impossible to call this war in this terms.

The new authorities threaten to send to jail all those who do not agree to equate communism and Nazism.

A Blow to the Veterans

The Supreme Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) approved a package of laws, which equates Soviet symbolism to the symbols of Nazi Germany. You can go to jail for 5 years for the public performance of the Anthem of the USSR or for marching under the red flag with the hammer and sickle. The country must remove all monuments to Soviet leaders and completely abandon the Soviet toponymy up to and including renaming of cities. That is, Dnepropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Dneprodzerzhinsk – all may sound in new ways. Renaming and removal of the monuments will affect primarily the unstable south-eastern regions. Including, for example, Artiomovsk, which is located 30 km from the front line. Even though there was recently conducted a referendum in the city, in which the citizens decided to leave the city’s name. “In the event of a change of names, people will need to renew passports and documents for real estate. Who will pay for it? – angrily demands Andrew Zolotarev, a political analyst in Kiev, and also draws attention to the fact that the symbolism will have to be chiselled down from hundreds of buildings. – Who will pay for the repair of façades?!”

But worse than wasting of any money, is the slap in the face, received by the Ukrainian veterans. Not only did Rada equate nationalists from the OUN and UPA, that is, those who worked during the war with the Nazis, to the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Now it is not clear whether the elderly, who saved the world from fascism, are allowed to put on their medals on May the 9th – or if they’ll get thrown into prisons for 5 years for “Soviet propaganda”? “This is cynicism of the highest degree – to prevent the veterans to wear their orders the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory. The Victory Banner, too appears to be a symbol of the communist regime? – political analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky told AiF. – I can not imagine how with such ideological line they are going to keep the country at least in its current borders.”


(Lenin’s present of 1922 included the following oblasts [counties] Harkov, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhje, Herson, Nikolaev, Odessa; Stalin’s present of 1939-1940,1945 included Lvov, Ternopol, Zakarpatie [Transcarpathia], Ivano-Frankovsk, Chernovick. [It should be remembered that it was Lenin that after 1917 revolution in Russia separated Ukraine into a separate state])

However, there indeed may be questions with the borders. Rada decided: from 1917 to 1991 a “criminal totalitarian regime” reigned in the country. But during the time when the Communists were “rampaging” in Ukraine, its territory markedly increased (see. Map). So the attempt to tear itself away from the Soviet past, casts doubt on the legitimacy of the Ukraine as a state. Because it actually was created by the Communists, with whom until recently many of those, who today denounce the Soviet regime, identified themselves. “For example, Turchynov was head of the department for propaganda, Poroshenko was a member of the Communist Party, Nalivaychenko was a KGB agent. Whoever you take, they were all members of the party! Even Yatsenyuk was one of the activists of the Young Communist League, and his father – the head of the Party cell,” – says political analyst Yuri Gorodnenko.

On All Fronts

The new Ukrainian laws, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, are not just an attempt to “erase from the memory of millions of Ukrainians the true pages of the history of Ukraine of the XX century”, all is more dangerous and more serious: “Against the backdrop of a declared combat on the supposedly totalitarian past, Kiev introduced a truly totalitarian methods to eliminate unwanted parties and non-governmental organizations… Sets rigid censorship of political thought for compliance, perverted notions of good and evil… While hiding behind the rhetoric of the civil rights and liberties, Ukrainian lawmakers in fact passed acts that directly restrict the exercise of rights to freedom of thought, conscience, belief and expression.” It is no coincidence that this decision was preceded by the expulsion of the Communist Party of Ukraine from the Parliament, along with the attempts to ban it and prosecute its leaders.

Meanwhile, this week marks one year of the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) in the south-eastern Ukraine. Sad anniversary was marked by fire from tanks near Mariupol and Donetsk. The “economic war” with Donbass continues: a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Kiev would not give a single hrivna to people living in DNR and LNR. Pensions and benefits are accrued to the accounts of citizens, but it is impossible to get them while Ukraine has no control over these territories. It is interesting: do Kiev “fighters with the past” seriously expect to regain control of millions of people whom they continue to exterminate by shellings, blockade, and, now, with the ideological taboos?

Ungrateful Europe.
What would have happened should we push Hitler back just to our borders

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This is a translation from Russian of two historical articles, published in Argumenty i Fakty on the 3rd of April 2015.
The main article was written by Georgij Zotov. A subsequent expert opinion is presented by historian Rudolph Pihoj.

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Victory “AiF” tried to imagine: what would the map of Europe look like, had USSR not given thousands of kilometres of territories as present to those countries that now call us occupiers. And if they would give up these lands now.

Wroclaw – one of the most touristic cities of Poland. Crowds with cameras are everywhere, there’s not a spare spot in the expensive restaurants, taxi drivers ask for ungodly prices. At the entrance to the marketplace there waves a banner saying “Wroclaw – a real Polish charm!”. All seems fine, but as early as in May 1945 Wroclaw was called Breslau and had not belonged to Poland for 600 consecutive(!) years before that. The Victory Day, now referred by Warsaw as “the beginning of the communist tyranny,” added to Poland the German Silesia, Pomerania, as well as 80% of East Prussia. No one mentions this now: in other words that was a tyranny, but we’d still grab that land. “AiF” observer decided to understand, what would the map of Europe look like now, if our former brothers in the East were left without the help of the “occupiers”?

Whole cities as gifts

– In 1945 Poland received the cities of Breslau, Gdansk, Zielona Gora, Legnica, Szczecin, – says Maciej Wisniewski, a Polish freelance journalist. – USSR also gave the territory of Bialystok; with the mediation of Stalin, we acquired a disputed with Czechoslovakia city Kłodzko. Nevertheless, they believe here: the partitioning of Poland by the Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact, when the Soviet Union took the Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, was unfair, but the transfer by Stalin to Poland of Silesia and Pomerania is absolutely fair, you can not dispute this. It is fashionable to say now that Russians did not liberate, but conquered. However, it turns into an interesting kind of occupation, when Poland got for free a quarter of Germany: and on top of it, hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers shed their blood for this land. Even the GDR resisted, not wanting to give Szczecin to the Poles – the dispute over the city was finally solved only in 1956, under pressure from the USSR.

Apart from the Poles, the Baltic States express a strong indignation by the “occupation”. Well, it’s worth remembering: the current capital – Vilnius – was also presented to Lithuania by the USSR; by the way, the Lithuanian population of Vilnius was then… barely 1%, with Polish being the majority. USSR returned to the Republic the city of Klaipeda – Prussian Memel, owned by Lithuanians in the 1923-1939, and annexed by the Third Reich. Already back in 1991 the Lithuanian leadership condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but no one returned neither Vilnius to Poland, nor Klaipeda to Germany.

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“Sophie” against Canaris.
She fought for USSR, but became Hero of Russia

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This is my translation of WWII documentary article, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 27th of March 2014.

Last year, 70 years later, the title of Hero of Russia (posthumously) was awarded to a resident of Soviet intelligence in Crimea, Alime Abdenanova.


Alime Abdenanova was a simple Crimean girl.

I leaf through a copy of the personal dossier of the Soviet intelligence resident in the Crimea, “Sofie”. These 15 sheets of Soviet military intelligence were long guarded, and got declassifying only in January 2008. The chiefs did not make a mistake in selecting her call sign, “Sofie”, which, in translation from the Tatar, means “pure, faithful”… And so was a Crimean Tatar Alime.

The individual case contains dry, standard words: was born in a suburb of Kerch on January 4, 1924, Tatar, finished seven years. Here is her receipt of observance of military secrecy, Komsomol card, presentation to the Order of the Red Banner, it even mentions her civilian salary – 375 roubles.

It would seem that’s a common characteristic of one of the thousands of Soviet military intelligence agents, who became a cog in a vast mechanism of Victory. Only one detail: thousands of Red Army soldiers who fought for the liberation of Crimea owe their lives to her. In her radiograms the girl passed on information about the transfer of German and Romanian troops through the station Sem’ Kolodezjej (Seven Wells). It is by her intelligence that our pilots bombed in Kerch fascist trains with soldiers and equipment. She held out in the German rear for six months. All in all, the fate measured out to Alime 20 years and 3 months of life.

So whose was Crimea?

On the eve of the war, Nazi historians gave Hitler some food for thought, saying that in ancient times Crimea was first settled by Goth tribes. And the Führer decided to ascend the peninsula to Germany, turning it into the country of the Goths – Gotenland, and making Crimea, after the war’s end, a resort area for the tops of the Third Reich.

Our troops – the 4th Ukrainian Front and the Special Coastal Army – reached the peninsular on autumn of 1943. But they could not overcome the German defence. They went almost blindly: there was no intelligence about the number and disposition of the German troops, and only the single line of defence of Kerch stretches for 70 km.

The groups of Soviet intelligence sent to the Crimea disappeared one after another. They were opposed by powerful groups of Abwehr (military intelligence and counterintelligence. – Ed.) – more than 30 groups whose activities were supervised personally by the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris.

The decision of the Soviet intelligence was unexpected – they decided to send to Crimea a female spy group from among the Crimean Tatar. But such candidates were not in reserves of the intelligence. Searches were conducted across the country. In the Krasnodar hospital there worked a nurse Alime – Crimean Tatar, Komsomol member, athlete, blue-eyed girl with brown hair, who came from those parts.

They told at the hospital that before she went to the front, the beauty went to a dance at the local club – to dance, as it turned out, the last waltz in her life…

For two weeks Alime participated in the special training program for intelligence: skydiving, studied ciphers, methods of agent recruitment. Natural courage and quick-wittedness helped Alima to become a commander of a scout group, consisting of two people – the second was a radio operator, a merry Larissa Gulyachenko with the call sign “Proud”. Command intelligence gave Larissa the following description: “Truthfully, not afraid of difficulties, resourceful, dreamy.” Who could have known that everything in fact would turn out to be the opposite.

In early October, a small “plywood” plane, punching Crimean rainy night, dropped the group in the steppe. On landing Alime injured her leg and, leaning on the radio operator, reached with difficulty her birth-village of Germai-Kachik.

Seeing her granddaughter, grandmother Revide just threw up her hands, while a younger sister Azife was happy. Grandmother, of course, guessed that Alime’s girlfriend Taisia ​​(the name that was given to the radio operator) appeared in the village not only in order to visit relatives. Later it will be recorded in the personal file of the resident, that she was able to organize an extensive intelligence network from her relatives and co-villagers, which promptly supplied the front with information on the nature and system of fortifications, deployment of troops, headquarters, clustering of manpower and equipment of the enemy. When the radio sessions were held, her little sister went out into the yard and upon noticing strangers, she would laugh loudly and sweep the streets so that the dust was raising as a pillar – a danger sign for the radio operators.

Radiograms to the Center went almost every day. Using data from only one such transmission, our bombers punched into the dust 42 cars with enemy manpower. Alime and her radio operator were awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Betrayed by her own

They weren’t sitting idly in the Abwehr either. The Germans began to realize that Soviet intelligence is working under their noses. Team “Hercules” distinguished itself, the head of which soon proved to Canaris that a Russian “radio-mole” works in Kerch. A radio finder was summoned from Simferopol, and spotted a station near the village of Germai-Kachik. There were only a dozen of houses there, and it was easy to deduce in which one the radio operator was working. Together with the Germans, there came to grandmother Revide’s house… the radio operator “Proud.” That very same “Proud” Larissa Gulyachenko, who having seen how the partisans were tortured, betrayed the whole group.

Gulyachenko attacked the younger girl, demanding to be shown where she re-hid the station. Azife, protecting her sister, tried to keep quiet, but when the Germans threatened to shoot her grandmother and burn the house, she showed the hiding place in the barn.

Alime was taken to the town of Stary Krym, and thrown into solitary confinement. She was not allowed to sleep, starved, the nails were pulled from her fingers, her arms were broken. An underground fighter, Tamara Stroganova, inmate of the same prison, recalls: “I knew Alime well. My brother loved to dance with the lithe mobile girl. Large blue eyes. And then I hardly recognized her: in the bloody dress, with broken arms, bruised, once splendid hair were almost completely torn out. Seeing me, Alime put a finger to her lips as if to say: You do not know me… I’ve never seen her after that.”

According to some sources, spies were shot on the outskirts of Simferopol, in the vicinity of the farm “Krasnaja”. There the fascists threw about 300 Crimeans, including those still alive, into a concrete pit.

Alime’s niece Dzhevar Assanova tells:

– One of our elders told me that the soul Alime is flying over the village and can not find the rest. At first we did not believe, and then began to collect money for the monument to Alime. And we set it – near the road Kerch-Simferopol. Praised be Allah, the soul of Alime is in peace.


Money for the monument to Alime were collected by family and friends. Photo: From the family archive

Crazy Asylum Overload: Ukraine Bans Communism – Goodbye Chinese Investments

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Reblogging Lada Ray’s brilliantly sarcastic article on the repercussions of the recent Ukrainian ban on all things Soviet…

Ukraine is very actively and aggressively re-writing history!

On April 9 the Kiev Rada equated communism with fascism. Ukraine president Poroshenko announced that Stalin started WWII together with Hitler. All communist symbolism was banned. The leader of the practically illegal communist party of Ukraine, elderly, white-haired Petr Simonenko was arrested and had to endure an 11-hour interrogation at the SBU. Last year, communist faction (present Rada’s only legally elected) was banned and rudely thrown out of Rada. Simonenko and other communists’ homes were burned down.

Let me remind everyone that the very first thing Hitler did after coming to power was to boot out of Reichstag the very popular communists. Subsequently, German communists were killed or sent to concentration camps. Next, Hitler invaded the rest of Europe.

So, everything communist is bad, right?

Great! Then how about Ukraine also demolishes MOST apartment buildings on its territory, since they were built during Soviet times. Wouldn’t Ukrainians rather live in the street than in communist-built apartments?

Ukraine should also return DneproGes to Russia. DneproGes is Ukraine’s largest hydroelectric station build by those damn Russians and bad communists in the 1930s, which still provides 1/3 of Ukraine with unnecessary electricity. DneproGes was the first massive Soviet industrialization project, and it is widely considered a SYMBOL of the Soviet communist industrialization. I seriously think Ukraine should give it back, since they have no use for such communist symbol!

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Read the full article here:
Crazy Asylum Overload: Ukraine Bans Communism – Goodbye Chinese Investments

WWII Veteran Stanislav Lapin: “I had my own score with Hitler”

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The article below is my translation from Russian of an account of one of the participants of the Victory Parade of 1945, as published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 6th of March 2015.

As we locate the still-living participants of the Parade, “AIF” will print their memories. The first word to Stanislav Vasilyevich Lapin – a simple but heroic soldier of the 3rd Belorussian Front.

If not for the war

– I am a kid from Moscow. Year of birth: 1923. At 16 I went to the factory. Got the fourth grade (proficiency). Everything would have been fine if it were not for the war… The factory produced military products. Therefore, for my grade I was given a reservation and was to be to sent, along with the machine, to the Urals. When the equipment was loaded onto the platform, I said, I’ll go for a walk. I left and never returned. Simply put, ran to the front. I could not be worse than all the rest! The very next day I got myself right to fight! Took the oath on November 4, 1941 – and strait to the battle of Volokolamsk. I also took part in the Battle of Moscow. I needed it, because in addition to the general, I had a personal score with Hitler. Before the war I had a girl. I called her “my Sonia”. Her and I loved to go for a walk around Moscow on warm evenings. But we were young and… never kissed. Just sat there and sometimes gently pressed against each other. And then came the war.

I went to the front, and my Sonia went to nursing courses. Then, to the front as well. And once, after a battle I was sitting on a halt. I see a supply cart, and on it – my Sonia. As she saw me, she ran up to me and started kissing me as never before. Our soldiers were looking at us in both envy and joy. And suddenly… a shot – my Sonia shuddered and began to sag in my arms. I cried in fright, and the boys rushed into the forest, where the shot came from. And there they saw a German in Russian boots and fur coat. He tried to escape. One of ours caught up with him and stabbed him with a bayonet. Other Germans who were there, did not have time to react – they too were finished off. Such was the hatred of our guys. Only I just sat there and held my Sonia. And still felt the ghost of her kisses.

After the war I met her mother, who ran up to me and started kissing me as my Sonia back then… But I could not find the strength to tell her how it all happened. And she did not know – she kissed and cried that Sonia was killed. So during the Battler for Moscow I had a personal score with Hitler!

And one more thing… looking for water in a deserted village, we found… a well, jammed with children. Around them lay dead mothers. A child was nailed to the house door with a bayonet… How could have we treated Germans after all that we’ve seen?!

The main medal

I was first wounded near Rzhev in February 42nd. There were heavy battles, neither we could take the Germans, nor they us. It lasted for a long time, until ours prevailed.

In 1943 I was in the Orel-Kursk battle. Here again I was wounded, but lightly, so I quickly returned to the front. That’s infantry for you: to fight, heal the wounds and fight again. My first medal is for the Battle of Kursk. I fought in the infantry from 41st until to 43rd and know first-hand what it means to raise into the attack. When the command is issued, you have to get up and go forward under machine-gun fire, explosions and mortar shells. Next to you your comrades fall, but all the same you go ahead. Forward! It’s simple when told, but it is impossible to get used to. Each attack is a shock and an effort. Artillery helped, the Germans fled. And only then, when catching up with them, you feel you have won this battle, and there is an unexplainable feeling of victory!

Advancements usually occurred during the nights, while the Germans were asleep. We came out of the blue. We were killed, we killed, but we won! That’s the infantry for you. In the 43rd I was retrained and for the battles at Orel I became a mortar oprative. Although I was only a sergeant, I was entrusted to command the mortar platoon. We chose a place near some village, and took up a position, adjusted the mortars in advance, placed guards, and went to sleep. Well… By nature I used to get up early. And here I woke up even earlier, at about five o’clock – wanted to wash my head. Nearby there was a crane-well. It was summer. I pulled out some water, poured it into the helmet and only started to wash, when I heard the hum. Looked at the road, and there down the hill… a whole column of German cars! I threw down my helmet and to the mortars. Fired… And hit from the first shot! Straight into the hood of the front car.

It was correct that we adjusted the aim the previous evening, and did not put off until morning. The Germans did not expect us here. Panic. My guys woke up from my shot. And started firing from all mortars – no one was left! Many did not even have time get out of their cars. That’s where I got the first medal “For Courage”.

The third time I was wounded near Vitebsk in 1944 and until autumn… suffered in the hospital, because whatever you say, but it’s easier to wait for the end of the war at the front! There, at least ,something depends on you. Near Vitebsk the soldiers of the 3rd Belorussian Front did not spare themselves. Despite all German shooting, they still went forward, because as sometimes it happens, that there is no other way! Germans did not take it into account, so we drove them out of Vitebsk. That’s the second medal. I also have an Order, but I would not exchange the medal “For Courage” for any Order.

For my two medals “For Courage” I was awarded the right to participate in the first Victory Parade. My place in the parade is different from most other places. My companions and I were sitting in the back of the car ZIS-5. We were warned that, passing Mausoleum, we should not turn our heads. But how could we not turn them when there were Stalin and Zhukov?!

Pepe Escobar in eastern Ukraine: Howling in Donetsk

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The picture of what happens in Novorossia – or Donbass – that the Western audience gets, is formed in the imagination of the paied-for MSM, based on falsifications and outright lies voiced from the Kiev junta and their lap-media. No Western MSM reporters went personally to Donbass to see what they are all writing about. A few Western reporters don’t want to put up with this state of affairs in MSM and go there – risking their lives – to tell the truth. One such reporter is the British journalist Graham Philips. The other is Pepe Escobar, who newly published an article of his impressions from Donbass. Styled as a simple list of what he saw and what he didn’t see, it is a clean and sobering documentary, at odds with the rosy picture of the Western MSM.

Asia Times’ roving correspondent Pepe Escobar just returned from a reporting trip to the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the pro-Russian enclave in the Donetsk Oblast province of eastern Ukraine. The area’s been the scene of heavy fighting between pro-Russian rebels and the Ukrainian military. Escobar traveled to Donetsk at the invitation of Europa Objektiv, a German-based non-governmental media project. He traveled at his own expense.

I’ve just been to the struggling Donetsk People’s Republic. Now I’m back in the splendid arrogance and insolence of NATOstan.

Quite a few people – in Donbass, in Moscow, and now in Europe – have asked me what struck me most about this visit.

I could start by paraphrasing Allen Ginsberg in Howl – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”

But these were the Cold War mid-1950s. Now we’re in early 21st century Cold War 2.0 .

Thus what I saw were the ghastly side effects of the worst minds of my – and a subsequent – generation corroded by (war) madness.

I saw refugees on the Russian side of the border, mostly your average middle-class European family whose kids, when they first came to the shelter, would duck under tables when they heard a plane in the sky.

I saw the Dylan of Donetsk holed up in his lonely room in a veterans’ home turned refugee shelter fighting the blues and the hopelessness by singing songs of love and heroism.

I saw whole families holed up in fully decorated Soviet-era bomb shelters too afraid to go out even by daylight, traumatized by the bombings orchestrated by Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operations”.

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Read the full article at Asia Times. It’s an eye-opener.