Back in 2014 the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation started out gathering evidence and publishing the White Books of the Ukrainian atrocities in Donbass. The work quickly became overwhelming with the sheer number of materials. I wrote about the White Books in my blog, and the copies of those materials are available for download in both Russian and English.With the sheer volume of materials, the Ministry stopped updating the books, focusing on internal evidence gathering.
Now, almost 10 years later more materials are coming to light:
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation has published a book by Maxim Grigoriev, Chairman of the International Public Tribunal for Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis, and Professor Mihail Myagkov:
“The Black Book. Atrocities of the modern Banderites – the Ukrainian neo-Nazis in 2014 – 2023”
The preface to the book was written by the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (translated below in its entirety):
Today, Russia is resisting the aggression of the collective West, also including on the battlefield during the Special Military Operation (SMO). At the same time, the West treats the territory of the former USSR as a springboard for the splitting and subsequent destruction of the Russian Federation.
The agression against Russia was being prepared since the early 2000s, when our country declared the restoration of its state sovereignty. The active phase of the implementation of Western plans began in 2014 immediately after the coup d’etat in Ukraine, when the neo-Nazi regime came to power in Kiev. Over the next eight years, the Ukrainian army and the punishers of nationalist battalions killed and tortured to death more than eight thousand civilians of Donbass who were trying to defend their human dignity, their civil rights, their native language. In the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics that were proclaimed as a result of national referendums, in Novorossiya, Ukrainian neo-Nazis killed and tortured people protesting against the Kiev regime. It thus happened in the Odessa House of Trade Unions on May 2, 2014, where dozens of people were burned alive. What is this but a crime requiring a fair trial in a democratic State? But the perpetrators of the massacre, whose names are known to everyone, remained at large. Moreover, they are honoured as national heroes.
Russia had to stop this bloody violence, the roots of which go back to the genocide committed by the Nazis and their Ukrainian accomplices during the Great Patriotic War against the population of the Soviet Union. Just like back then, we are talking about the life and death of people under the rule of a terrorist anti-human regime. People who have chosen the path of life as part of Russia or who want to be together with Russia have the right to believe in justice and inevitable retribution dealt to the war criminals for their deeds.
Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly stated: “We have not started any hostilities, we are trying to end them.” That is why on February 24, 2022, he made an appeal to the citizens of the country, in which he announced the beginning of the special military operation.
“Its goal,” the President stressed, “is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years. And for this, we will strive towards the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Neo-Nazis in Ukraine are not even trying to hide whose heirs they are. Crosses on the APU equipment, symbols with swastikas at the national battalions, the Nazi greeting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” and, most importantly, the ideology of “Ukraine above all!” (a carbon-copy from the Nazi “Deutschland über alles”) — all this clearly shows what kind of enemy we are dealing with.
Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for their native hearth, their homeland in the Great Patriotic War. Our heroic fighters are fighting for their home, their country today in their own zone. But, as 80 years ago, we must convey to the enemies an immutable thought — none of their war crimes will go unpunished.
The Investigative Committee of Russia and the Main Military Investigation Department are collecting and documenting thousands of facts about the atrocities of militants of Ukrainian national formations and military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Trials are already underway and sentences are being handed down to those persons whose specific guilt in the destruction of civilians and prisoners of war has been proven. The work continues. And it will not end with the victory of the Russian army in the SMO. Those Ukrainian war criminals who will not be destroyed on the battlefield will still face a fair trial. Their crimes have no statute of limitations.
The Russian Federation, the successor state of the USSR, has a solid experience in punishing war criminals. Beginning in 1943, open trials of German Nazis and their accomplices from among local traitors took place in the Soviet Union. Such trials took place in Donetsk (then Stalino), Krasnodon, Harkov and Kiev. Hundreds of murderers of civilians and Soviet prisoners of war received harsh sentences, including the death penalty by hanging.
Modern Ukrainian neo-Nazis, their leaders and the Armed Forces of Ukraine should also remember the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1946 to Nazi war criminals.
Despite the fact that Western countries and the Kiev neo-Nazi regime have forgotten about the need to comply with the norms of international humanitarian law, the Russian Federation will achieve their implementation during and according to the results of the SMO.
This “Black Book” contains terrible evidence and facts of torture, violence, murders that were committed and are still being committed by the Ukro-Nazis and the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The task today is to make as many people as possible know about them in our country and abroad. So that the pain and grief of people affected by Ukrainian neo-Nazism will never be forgotten. For the Ukrainian prisoners, acquaintance with this book may be the first step towards realizing the abyss into which they were driven by the criminal actions of Kiev.
The existing regime in Ukraine will be defeated, and the evil that it brings to Russia, the Ukrainian people themselves and the whole world will be punished!
Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation
Army General Sergei Shoigu