By: Andrei Kozyrev, former Russian Foreign Minister, author of the book "Fiery Bird: The Tailing Fate of Russian Democracy" / Financial Times


Translated by: Agron Shala / Telegrafi.com

I grew up in Moscow believing that Ukrainians were people like everyone else.

I learned that the appeal of the Soviet government to the people to rise up against the occupation of Nazi Germany in 1941, started with the words "brothers and sisters".

This of course involved both Russians and Ukrainians.

The people rose, suffering severely and contributing decisively to the final victory of World War II achieved together with the US, Britain and France.

When I later worked in the UN department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, I was proud of the fact that the Soviet republics of Ukraine and Belarus were founding members of that global organization, along with the USSR itself.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, about 90 percent of Ukrainians, including most in Crimea and Donbas, voted for independence in a referendum.

I was proud of the fact that I am a member of the government of the Russian Federation that respected that election.

And, it was my duty and privilege to design the structure for the neighborly relations between Russia and Ukraine, while in 1994 I wrote, together with my American colleagues, the Budapest Memorandum that provided security guarantees for Ukraine.

In return, Kiev undertakes to supply Russia with its nuclear weapons, which it does in a short time.

This personal background should help explain why what has happened to Ukraine since 2014 is so important to me.

In March of that year, President Vladimir Putin used troops from a Russian military base in Crimea to annex the peninsula.

According to the Budapest memorandum, this was a brazen violation of Russia's obligations.

Unfortunately, America responded with diplomatic reprimands and weak sanctions.

Encouraged by this, Putin invaded parts of the Donbas.

Again the US and the West expressed disapproval, but the practical measures were limited to ineffective sanctions.

For eight years Russia consolidated its benefits, while the West, especially Europe, hid behind the mantra that the Minsk Agreement created to ensure peace in the Donbas should be implemented.

Then, on February 24 this year, Russian troops began the full occupation of Ukraine.

But this time Putin's bet on poor reaction, from both Kiev and the West, turned out to be wrong.

After encountering fierce resistance, desperate and demoralized Russian commanders resorted to terrorist tactics, including indiscriminate bombing and targeting of civilians.

Kremlin propaganda seeks to link the invasion of Ukraine to the "Great Patriotic War" waged by the Russians and Ukrainians against Hitler's Germany.

They called the administration of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine elected by free and fair votes, "Nazi".

Euphemistically, Moscow calls this war a "special military operation" to liberate Ukraine from Nazism and turn it into "Russkiy mir" (Russian world - vp), an area vaguely defined for the domination of Moscow and the Orthodox Church. Russian, whose patriarch has blessed the conquest.

Now, in the traditional World War II Victory Day parade to be held on May 9 in Moscow's Red Square, the Kremlin is getting ready to portray the operation as a follow-up to the fight against Nazism.

Putin has in fact managed to establish a connection with the Nazis - but, through his actions, not by slandering Kiev.

Consider these similarities between Russian aggression today and Hitler's war of conquest in Europe after 1939.

The dictator has ordered the conquest of foreign territory, to glorify himself.

It has done so unprovoked by the country being invaded, pursuing its own goals contrary to bilateral and international agreements.

The invasion is justified on the basis of false claims of historical, ideological or religious supremacy.

The myth is propagated that the victims of aggression are in fact being liberated from oppression - communist in the case of Hitler, Nazi in the case of Putin.

Whereas, the army has acted barbarically by attacking the civilian population, destroying valuable cultural properties and heritage.

The grand display of the Russian army in Red Square and the false "anti-Nazi" justification for aggression in Ukraine is blasphemy against the memory of the Holocaust and the tens of millions of people killed during World War II.

Vacancies reserved for foreign diplomats and personalities should remain vacant.

This would send a powerful message to the millions of Russians who will watch the parade on television.

/ Telegraphy /