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“Life is such a simple, yet cruel thing” – recollection of the Great Patriotic War written by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin

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This recollection of the War was written by the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and published in Russian Pioneer on the 30th of April 2015. Soviet Union lost 27 million people in that War, and almost every single family has a recollection of losses and hardships connected with it. And the family of the President of RF is no exception. Read on my unofficial translation from Russian below…

Frankly, father did not like even to touch the subject. Rather, it was like this: when adults were talking to each other and remembering something, I was just around. All the information about the war, about what happened with my family, came to me from those conversations between the adults. But sometimes they addressed me directly.

Father served in Sevastopol, in the detachment of submarines – he was a sailor. He was drafted in 1939. And then, after returning from service, he just worked at a factory, and they lived with my mother in Peterhof. I think they even built some house there.

He was working at a military enterprise when the war started, giving the so-called “reservation” that exempts one from conscription. But he wrote an application to join the party, and then another application – that he wants to go to the front. He was dispatched to the subversive detachment of the NKVD. It was a small detachment. He said that there were 28 people in it, and they were deployed into the near rear for carrying out acts of sabotage. The undermining of bridges, railway tracks… But they were almost immediately ambushed. Someone betrayed them. They came to a village, and then went out, and when after a while they returned, the Nazis were already waiting for them there. They were chased through the woods, and he survived, because he climbed into a swamp, and spent a few hours in that swamp, breathing through a reed. This I remember already from his own story. And he said that, while sitting in the swamp and breathing through the reed, he heard how the German soldiers were passing nearby, just a few steps away from him, how the dogs were yapping…

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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 Georgy Zotov. A subsequent expert opinion is presented by historian Rudolph Pihoj.

Soviet soldiers distribute bread to the residents of the city of Breslau during the Great Patriotic War.

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.

Ukrainians are taught that dying for the US interests is their purpose

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American instructors are hard at work turning Ukrainians into brainwashed killing machines. A video below show ones such example.

Some of the recipients of the motivational speeches from these advisors are former convicts, formed into multiple so-called Territorial Defence Battalions or, politely-called “#police battalions”, but are in effect punishers, who have been documented molesting and killing local population that disagrees with the Nazi rule imposed on them, just like it happened durig the German NAzi occupation of these same territories in the 1940s.

Lada Ray analyses the video and highlights some of the unsettling aspects both with it and with the situation in Ukraine in her article Damning Evidence: “No Feelings.” How US Advisors Teach Ukrainians to Be Killing Machines!. The beginning of the article and the video are presented below, and I strongly advise my readers to follow the link above and read the article in full.

The damning video below shows a training session in Kiev, Ukraine, for the Ukraine army/national guard soldiers. This American, who explains that he used to work in the US, rehabilitating the worst drug addicts and axe murderers, says he ‘believes’ in people. “No feelings in war,” he repeats like a mantra. This is brainwashing at its best, as many of us have suspected all along. It has been suspected for the longest time that Americans are using all kinds of open brainwashing and MK ultra techniques on Ukrainians, and no doubt, on other Eastern Europeans. Finally, the evidence is coming out!

“Your senses have to be fully alert, but no feelings and emotions” (yes, god forbid you feel sorry or remorseful for the children you’ve killed in Donbass). This is a nazi killing machine preparation protocol in action!

The whole thing is in English, plus the translator is providing Russian translation. In the background, you can see the poster reading: “Believing in yourself, believing in Ukraine.” A very American poster, I must say, as no one talks like that in Ukraine!

The poster is also in Russian, not Ukrainian, which proves another thing a lot of Russian analysts have been pointing out: US is bent on creating ANTI-RUSSIA in Ukraine, using Russians and Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. The Gallup Poll of 2007 indirectly confirmed that over 80% of Ukrainians consider Russian their native language, not Ukrainian, despite many years of brainwashing. If they couldn’t do it through schools and media, they decided to create the anti-Russia, using Russians.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OPEfjWVbrc

Repentance of Berlin.
After 70 years, the Germans have an unambiguous attitude towards the Soviet victory

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Below is my translation of an article by Georgy Zotov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 6th of March 2015.

– Excuse me, but where is the monument to Soviet soldiers?

– Stay on the road. Walk a little further and you’ll immediately see the gates.

The memorial in Berlin’s Treptow Park is the largest outside the former Soviet Union, and one is immediately struck by its size. Police strolls by, watching order, cleaners gather fallen branches. People come here all the time – and, surprisingly, not only the residents of the former East Germany (GDR), but also quite the Westen Germans. I met a businessman from Hamburg, a 34-year-old Herbert Müller, who made a special trip to the monument – to lay flowers and pay tribute to the Soviet soldiers. A situation that is quite difficult to imagine in today’s Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic.

Traffic controller Katya Spivak at the crossroads of Berlin. May 1945. Photo: RIA Novosti / Jacob Ryumkin

“The monstrous meat grinder”

– On the 9th of May I always think about the suffering of the German and Soviet soldiers, who were involved in a terrible slaughter, the bloodiest in human history – Herbert tells me. – Do you know what angers me the most right now? Politicians in Western Europe forgot about the Second World War and are aggressively pushing us for a showdown with Russia. They learned nothing from 50 million victims. How would supplies of modern weapons to Ukraine help to maintain truce in this country? We can not change anything in the last war, but we can prevent the next: that’s what we have to think about!

Herbert Mueller never saw his grandfather – he was killed near Moscow in December 1941. The same story, with a few exceptions, will be told by almost every German – grandfathers in the service in the army, the SS, the Gestapo, fighting in the Volkssturm. Some died at the front, some were captured, and some even hanged as war criminals: I got to talk to a woman, whose grandfather served in the Majdanek concentration camp. However, I heard nothing negative with regard to the Victory Day, in contrast to our former friends from Eastern Europe. Of course, for the Germans, the 8-9 May is not a national holiday, but rather an occasion for mourning for the dead relatives. Something that no one has forgotten, is the bombing of Berlin and other cities by the Anglo-American aviation. “40,000 civilians were killed in Hamburg in 1943, two years later in Dresden – 25,000. We can’t even put a memorial to them – the “allies” of Germany will misunderstand – says businessman Volker Heinecke, who in 1942, as a two-year child, was kidnapped by the Nazis from the USSR and placed in an SS child centre “Lebensborn”. – I was five years old, but I remember very well how residential neighbourhoods of Hamburg burned: the bombs fell nearby”.
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Prague Winter.
What is the Czechs’ attitude towards the coming 70th anniversary of the Victory?

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Below is my translation of an article by Georgy Zotov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 27th of February 2015. The title is a play on concepts. “Prague Spring” was a period of political and cultural liberalisation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Prague residents enthusiastically welcome Soviet tankers

Over the last 25 years they repeatedly tried to rewrite history in the Czech Republic so as to show – Prague was liberated by whoever, but not by the Soviet troops. However, this period is now referred to by some citizens of the country as “madness”.

– When was Prague liberated? We celebrate the Victory Day on 8th of May. I do not know what happened there. It seems that the Americans wanted to help the Czechs, who revolted against the SS. But they were prevented by the Russians. Anyway, that’s what we were taught.

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Crimea – The Way Home. A review of a documentary film.

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A definitive documentary on the reunification of Crimea with Russia is aired today. Here is a quick translation of the blurb as presented on Rossia TV site.

This full-length documentary was conceived to preserve the history of every major episode of events that took place in the Crimea in the spring of 2014. Filming lasted for 8 months and covered Foros, Sevastopol and Simferopol, and Kerch, Yalta and Bakhchisaray; Feodosia, Djankov, Alushta and a dozen settlements of the Crimea. A long conversation with Vladimir Putin was recorded while the events were fresh, and later, more than fifty interviews with participants and witnesses of the Crimean spring. How it all began? How Russia received an official request from the legitimate president of Ukraine to save his life?

It was an operation, the likes of which has not been seen in recent world history. Vladimir Putin himself reveals a year later all the details of how a few kilometers before the ambush with machine guns, Viktor Yanukovych had been secretly evacuated, and a detailed reconstruction is dedicated to it in this film.

“It was the night of 22 to 23 February, finished at about 7 am, and I let everyone go and went to sleep at 7 am. And, in parting, I will not deny, when parting, before everyone left, I told all my colleagues, there were four of them, I said that the situation in Ukraine turned out so that we have to start working on the return of the Crimea to Russia. Because we can not leave the area and the people who live there to fend for themselves, under the roller of the nationalists. And I put forth some tasks, said what and how we should do, but immediately said that we will do so only if we are absolutely convinced that this is what the people themselves who live in the Crimea want”, – said in an interview Vladimir Putin.

So the first order, which was given by the president, concerned not the security services and the Ministry of Defence, but his administration, which experts and sociologists conducted a closed survey in the Crimea. What questions answered Crimeans, when even the word “referendum” was not yet spoken?

“It turned out that of those wishing to join Russia, there 75% of the total population. You know, a closed survey was conducted, outside the context of a possible merger. For me, it became obvious that if we come to this, the level or the number of those who would like to this historic event to occur, would be much higher, “- said the Russian president.

Korsun pogrom. How many people were killed or missing after Ukrainian nationalists attacked the convoy of the Crimean people and burned their buses? How a militia of the Crimea was formed? Who was its leader?

How “polite people” first appeared in Crimea? Who were they, by whose orders were they sent to the peninsula? And how long did the special operation take the resulted of which on the night of February 27 was to take under control of all key government buildings?

“The ultimate goal was not to capture the Crimea and do some annexation. The ultimate goal was to give people the opportunity to express their opinion on how they want to live. I tell you quite frankly, honestly tell you. I thought for myself, if people want, then so be it. So if they will be there with greater autonomy, with some rights, but as a part of the Ukrainian state. So be it. But if they want a different way, we we can not leave them! We know the results of the referendum. And we did what was required to do!” – said the Russian leader.

How did they managed without bloodshed to disarm 193 military bases of Ukraine in the Crimea? What was the secret of the Black Sea Fleet, which invited Ukrainian colleagues to negotiate exclusively to Hersonissos? How did they manage to close in the bays Ukrainian Navy ships? But why did it not go without assault and shooting in Feodosia?

How Russia came into contact with NATO units in the Crimea, and at sea, with the naval forces of the Navy? About what did Vladimir Putin talk in those days with Barack Obama? And how did our coastal missile complexes “Bastion” come to the Crimea, suddenly changing the whole course of events? Two outspoken interviews with Vladimir Putin, and all the episodes of the Crimean spring, which determined the course of Russia’s recent history – see in the film “Crimea. The Path to the Homeland.”

In the meantime, Yatsnejuk, in his typical evil clown amplua, threatens to create a film, titled “Crimea. Crime and Punishment.” Sure. He should know how to commit crime against humanity and to create punisher Nazi battalions that slaughter the population of Donbass (a fate, that was also slated to Crimeans by the West-Ukrainian coup-makers).

If ever a film under his proposed title is created, its full title will be “Crimea. Hrushov’s Crime and the Punishment of Ukro-Nazis”.

Blood and Vienna.
Even After 70 Years the Soviet Soldiers Are Respected in Austria

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Below is a translation of an article by Georgy Zotov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 20th of February 2015. The title is a play on words. “Vienna” is written the same as the word “vein” in Russian.

In contrast to our former allies in Eastern Europe, it is well understood in Austria: in 1945 Soviet troops freed their country from the regime of Adolf Hitler.

A very old, completely grey-haired man tells me how to get to the ​​Schwarzenberg square. “You have an interesting accent. Are you Russian?” – “Yes.” He immediately switches over to my mother tongue, pronouncing some words with difficulty. “My name is Helmut Hurst, for two years I was with you as a … war-time-prisoner. Got mobilised to the Volkssturm straight from school in April forty-five, when your troops entered Vienna. No training, got handed a rifle with no bullets – and forward into the fray for the great Fuhrer. I’m not dead only thanks to the Russians, although I was captured with weapons in my hands. Thank you.”

USSR saved us

After the statements of the Republic of Poland and the Baltic states that the anniversary of Victory is not a liberation, but the beginning of a “new occupation”, you come to Austria as if to another planet. A completely different attitude. The press service of the capital gladly told me: for the 70th anniversary of the entry of the Red Army into Vienna, they plan to lay flowers at the monument to Soviet soldiers, conduct a memorial service at the site of the Mauthausen concentration camp, open the Museum of the liberation of Vienna, and even stage theatrical performances.

The Red Army entered the city on April 5th 1945, and already on April 13th the remnants of the Nazi army in the capital of Austria (then part of the Third Reich) surrendered. Soviet troops remained in Vienna for a little more than a decade – they left after the restoration of the sovereignty of Austria as an independent state.

– Austrians seriously differ from Eastern Europe in terms of the perception of the Second World War – explains historian and researcher Gerhard Zauner. – In 1945, Poland and Czechoslovakia met Russians with flowers, rejoicing and shouting “Hurrah!”, the girls hung on their necks of your soldiers. 70 years later the Poles and Czechs pretend that there was no liberation at all, that only “new occupants” came to them. It’s completely different in Austria. Brainwashed by Goebbels’ propaganda, people were waiting: that any moment bearded Cossacks will appear on the streets of Vienna and will devour the Austrian babies. Back then we did not consider ourselves to be victims of Nazism, because Austria welcomed Hitler and fought together with the Germans. However, after 70 years, many of our citizens are grateful to your people.

First, the USSR rescued a small nation from further destruction – hundreds of thousands of Austrians have already been killed and the Western and on the Eastern Fronts. Secondly, Vienna was not subjected to massive air strikes, and this is preserved the historical neighbourhoods. Third, at the demand of the USSR, Austria became a neutral state, and later our guys did not die in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Flowers on the graves

Austrian press has organized an opinion poll: “Do you want to dismantle the monument to Soviet soldiers?”. 91%(!) of Austrian voted against. And while our former friends in Eastern Europe are now publicly announcing May 9, 1945 as the beginning of the “Soviet tyranny”, for millions of people in Austria, this date is the liberation, and not a conquest. Austria finances maintenance of military cemeteries, where Soviet soldiers are buried (in the storming of Vienna 40,000 people were killed), and restoring monuments at their own expense. Driving through the eastern part of the country, I saw with my own eyes how the villagers (and not only the elderly ones) bring flowers to the graves of our soldiers. When I asked them why they do this, they were amazed by the question: “These are our liberators!”

But there is a fly in the ointment. For six consecutive years, on the eve of May 9th, hooligans poured paint on monument to Soviet soldiers on Schwarzenberg square: either black, or (on the last occasion) yellow-blue. The fence behind the monument, as well as containers for projectors are covered by graffiti. Attackers have not been found, although in Vienna City Hall assured me that now the perimeter is covered by video cameras: the crime is unlikely to happen again.

The fence behind the monument to our soldiers is covered with graffiti. Photo: AiF/ Georgy Zotov

“Enough Christmas trees for all”

– First of all the suspicion falls on neo-Nazis – we have more and more problems with the radicals of the right-wing movements, – thinks the ex-worker of the Communist Party of Austria, Alexander Neumann. – There is a version that vandals are visitors from Poland or Ukraine. Although, of course, Austria is responsible for such incidents. But, you must agree, it’s a couple of cases – not a mass phenomenon. When the memorial on the square Schwarzenberg was spilled with paint last year, dozens of volunteers organised a vigil at the monument, and one of them vowed to “punch the face the Nazis are not respecting Russians.”

Austrian politicians are delicate in their comments on the topic og 70th anniversary of the appearance in Vienna of the Soviet troops. According to the press service of the Parliament, “different views are expressed: most people would say that this was a liberation, a minority – that a military defeat, but no one would call the entry of the Red Army in Vienna for and illegal occupation. In Austrian history school books, the point of view is clear: 1945 is a year of the liberation of Austria, and nothing else.”

“We must admit, all kinds of things happened, – says the former soldier of Volkssturm Helmut Hurst. – Soviet troops stayed with us for 10 years, there were love affairs, Austrians gave birth to children, and then classmates teased the poor kids as “ferfluhter russen” – “cursed Russians”. My neighbour did not like the Russians – a Soviet truck damaged his lawn. Another neighbour scolded bureaucracy: to move from one area of Vienna to another, you had to obtain five commandant seals of the USSR. However, after seventy years, we are grateful to the Russians for getting rid of Hitler. In captivity, I worked in a sawmill. Since then, if someone is talking about a possible war with Russia, I say, “No problem. Russians taught us to fell trees in the POW camps … there are a lot more Christmas trees there – enough for everyone!”

The Hungarian Amnesia. How do people on the Danube treat the anniversary of the liberation of Budapest

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Below is a translation of an article by Georgy Zotov, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 13th of February 2015:

Red Army soldiers in the battle for Budapest.

Despite the fact that Hungary joined Hitler and attacked the USSR, the position of the local historians is often the same: in 1945 the country became a “victim of Soviet tyranny.” Is this true? An “AiF” observer is trying to make sense of the situation.

In number 3 of “AiF” we published a report from Poland “The Sorrow of a Warsaw Woman” (English translation here): why Polish politicians and the media ignored the memory of Soviet soldiers who liberated Warsaw. The article caused an unprecedented surge of responses and questions from readers: how do things stand with memory in other European countries? In this regard, commemorating the 70th anniversary of Victory, “AiF” begins a series of reports from European capitals that the Red Army occupied after Warsaw: on February 13, 1945 it liberated Budapest.

Soldier with PCA was removed

– Of course, we are absolutely not like Poles – a freelance journalist Laszlo Kovacs, who in 1981-1986 studied in the USSR, politely starts the conversation. – In Hungary, there is no general negative attitude towards Russia, our Prime Minister is in favour of the construction of the “South Stream” and the cessation of the EU’s anti-Russian sanctions. However, as in the rest of Eastern Europe, our media since 1989, hammered into people’s minds the same thing, that in 1945 the evil Russians came here and brought on tips of their bayonets the communist regime. We tend to forget that in fact it was Hungary that joined Hitler and declared war on the Soviet Union and sent to the Eastern Front hundreds of thousands of soldiers – during the Battle of Stalingrad a whole Hungarian army perished there. We took the land of the neighbours in Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. In just one year the Hungarian police and SS together with the Germans destroyed 450,000 local Jews and 28,000 Gypsies. It’s just awful. The Red Army saved Hungarians from becoming a Nazi monsters.

Before and after: a monument to our soldiers completely anonymised. Photo: RIA Novosti, AIF / Georgy Zotov


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Andrey Karaulov: For Russia the ’90s Were Worse Than WWII

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Following is a telling reply to a reader question, published in Russian in newspaper Argumenty i Fakty:

Deputies are trying to demand a compensation from Germany for the losses suffered by Russian in the Great Patriotic War. But why don’t they take care of the cases that happened 20 years ago and hold accountable those who bankrupted factories, ruined farms?

Reply by Andrey Karaulov, journalist:

– What has been done to the country in the era of perestroika by “young reformers” is unimaginable. Yes, the Germans during the War destroyed the factories on the occupied territories, they blew them up. But during World War II, to save plants, Stalin evacuate them to Central Asia, Siberia.

While during the 90s, 262 largest plants that fed the entire country were culled. These were primarily metallurgical plants, plants that produced the world’s best ball-bearings, and so on. Machine tool construction suffered the biggest blow. 187 of 262 factories were brought back to life by Putin. But some, such as the Ukhtomskij Plant in Lyubertsy is impossible to revive. To understand what the 90s cost Russia, go to Lyubertsy, walk around the wasteland, where once there was a chain of several companies with more than 8,000 jobs. Previously, there was the production of the different machines for agriculture. And now, all’s empty. I remember when in Krasnoyarsk I went with the camera around a plant, which produced tires. Only horror movies could be shot in those workshops nowadays. We have transcripts of Gaidar Cabinet. Unique plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur producing our SU jets (today they are considered the best in the world) was proposed to be re-profiled into the production of Chinese bicycles. They said back then, they will be in high demand.

Today we pay for those mistakes (translator: I would call them crimes!). The best scientific schools are destroyed. I once asked Nobel laureate Zhores Alferov: could we in the ’90s, after Gaidar, Chubais and Nechayev ploughed through our industry, build a nuclear bomb? He categorically said, “No, we wouldn’t be able to.” Because all that was needed for its production, had been destroyed… Why those reformers are not held accountable today? Firstly, because all decisions that were taken back then, were approved by Boris Yeltsin. The fact of the matter is that there was no one single saboteur, but a lot of people in power. So should we judge the whole former government? Some are not among us, and others far away. Dead are Boris Fyodorov, Yegor Gaidar. We do not, after all, think of judging the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, because of what they made in 1917.

The Sorrow of a Warsaw Woman. Why Poland is not happy to be liberated from fascism?

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In a very strong post by Lada Ray, Wake Up, the Soldier of Ukraine!, a reader Paul commented the following:

You know, seeing how the Poles and Galicians view Russia, I would say that Russia’s attempts to sweep things under the rug with ideas of Slavic brotherhood and such were not wise. Even within the Ukraine, Eastern Ukrainians saying “We are brothers” while Western Ukrainians said “We are not brothers” didn’t work out so well. It might have been better to say “We are cousins; we don’t always agree, but let’s work together when we can.” A bit of an overgeneralisation, but you get the idea. The point is that you have to stand up for yourself in this world, and get your position across, particularly when it seems like you are facing a bully.

One can make the case that the Soviet and Russian leadership wanted a huge Ukraine that contains too many groups and cultures as a way to prevent NATO or nationalism from gaining territory. The drawback is it really isn’t a normal country, and this made it easy for the West to take over with Bandera types.

I think that the reason Russia was not overly-concerned with brotherly nations forgetting the positive aspects of Russia, was because Russians themselves would not forget or deny the help that they receive and would not think it necessary to remind of such acts in return. In a way, reminding someone of the acts of kindness from you can be viewed as an insult. Turns out it was not so self-evident that reminders were not in order…

It looks like the common Poles still remember, though, as illustrated by the following article by Georgy Zotov, published in Argumenty i Fakty on the 15th of January. Translated to English below, by yours truly.

G. Zotov is a travelling journalists, living in various, often dangerous, parts of the world and getting to know the local people. His articles are always a revelation about the moods of the people “lower down”, often contrasting with what we hear from MSM from the “higher ups”.

The title is a refrain on the wartime march Farewell of a Slavic Woman.

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