Ukraine Briefing Update Plus A Foresight Forum Recap

Another Long Read

As promised, here’s the very long Ukraine update from yesterday’s weekly briefing by Maria Zakharova:

On the Ukrainian crisis

I would like to start with what Western countries are doing. On the one hand, they talk about peace in the context of the very conference to which they are trying to invite everyone, pretending that it will be engaged in some kind of "peacebuilding". In fact, this is all far from the truth. This is evidenced by their specific steps in recent years and months to supply weapons, increasing funding for hostilities in Ukraine. And their alleged ignorance and ignorance of the terrorist acts carried out by the Kiev regime and its henchmen indicates that they undoubtedly represent (I mean the "collective West") the world party of war. The conference announced in Switzerland has nothing to do with peace. This is just an attempt to bring together a certain number of countries in order to try to legitimise Western narratives and approaches and to unconditionally legitimise both the figure of Vladimir Zelensky himself and his regime and all his monstrous, extremist and terrorist acts.

Against the backdrop of major failures of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near Kharkov, the Kyiv regime seeks to take out its anger and take revenge on the civilian population of Russia, subjecting it to shelling from various types of NATO weapons.

At the same time, Western countries, literally not noticing the terrorist activities of their Ukrainian wards, publicly encourage them to strike at Russian regions. On May 26, Swedish Defence Minister Peter Johnson announced this "right" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. On May 28 in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at a joint meeting with EU defence ministers called on European capitals to lift all restrictions on Kiev's use of Western weapons. The very weapons that have been supplied to the Kyiv regime all this time speak of the true plans and goals of the "collective West". The fact is that it is not intended, as everyone understands very well, for defensive purposes. The radius of destruction and the technical characteristics of these weapons, which fall into the hands of the extremist Kiev regime, testify to exactly what NATO capitals have now begun to openly talk about: encouraging Vladimir Zelensky and the Armed Forces of Ukraine to strike at civilian infrastructure in our country.

On May 28 in Berlin, at a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron showed and argued with a geographical map of the Russian-Ukrainian border area that "it is necessary to allow Ukraine to strike at targets on Russian territory."

And what about Washington? The United States, having publicly allegedly disagreed with the use of American missiles against Russia, in fact gave the "go-ahead" for their use. This is evidenced by regular attacks on Crimea using ATACMS missiles. One of them was committed on May 24 of this year.

The response of the Russian Armed Forces to such actions follows every time. This will continue to be the case. These answers are proportionate. Russia's security will be ensured, among other things, as President Vladimir Putin said on May 28 of this year, by creating a "sanitary zone in Ukraine."

The courts of the Russian Federation, based on the evidence of the Investigative Committee of Russia, continue to sentence Ukrainian militants who committed serious crimes against civilians.

Militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine O. Kolmychevsky, D. Dobrovolsky, A. Romashin and V. Kulyk received life imprisonment. It was established that as a result of their criminal orders and actions in the period from February 24 to April 12, 2022, three civilians were injured in Mariupol, one of them fatally.

Ukronazi Dmitry Danilov received the same punishment in absentia for the criminal order to open fire on civilians on March 20, 2022 in Mariupol, when two civilians were killed.

Bandera activist Alexei Sobko was sentenced in absentia to 27 years in prison for shooting a civilian, attempted murder, and shelling civilian infrastructure in 2017 near Gorlovka in the DPR.

The head of the pre-trial detention center of the pre-trial detention center No. 23 of the city of Poltava, A. Domashov, was sentenced to 22 years in absentia. He has been found guilty of ill-treatment of prisoners of war from April 2022 to the present.

Ukronazi Yury Shevchuk was sentenced to 24 years in prison for the premeditated murder of a civilian in Mariupol in March 2022.

We have taken note of the decision of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kiev to close the once high-profile case of dispersing protesters on the Maidan. The same Berkut case.

In fact, the court dotted all the i's, nine years later recognizing that the leaders of the Berkut special unit acted within the law. They were cleared of all charges, including the arrest of their property. It was then, in 2013, on that very night, that the phrase "vonyzhdyty" (aka children) was born, and the terrible stuffing and fiction, the very "fakes" about the beating of "children" by the inhuman "Berkut". It was all this that served as the basis for the countries of the "collective West" to once again blame Russia for what is happening in Ukraine. Remember how they said that everything was allegedly inspired by the Russian Federation and, together with those invented crimes of the Berkut, the ground was heated up in order to literally pit people in Ukraine against each other, turning these externally inspired Maidans into a real civil war.

The pretext that served as a trigger for an aggressive political and media campaign against Ukrainian law enforcement agencies turned out to be a fake. Even the "pocket" justice of the "main democrat of Ukraine" Vladimir Zelensky turned out to be helpless in the face of the truth. It was impossible to hide it. There are no documents or facts that would testify against the Berkut. Accordingly, they did not appear in 9 years.

We would like to hope that sooner or later we will also find out who was really behind the "sniper case" and gave the criminal orders for the shootings in the center of Kiev in those tragic days of February 2014. After all, it was the Westerners who referred to the shots of those very "snipers" when they said that the former legitimate authorities in Ukraine, President Viktor Yanukovych and his administration, ministries and departments of Ukraine lost this legitimacy due to the fact that the shooting began. There was no answer to the question of the Russian Federation, a huge number of experts, political scientists, journalists and many officials around the world: who fired and gave these orders. Westerners began to refer to the fact that they have 100% reliable information, that the shots were fired by the legitimate authorities. This is a crossing of all possible boundaries. Therefore, they are beginning to recognise as legitimate authorities those who came in the wake of the Maidan: Arseniy Yatsenyuk and the whole "hop-stop" campaign. The Westerners also referred to the mandatory investigation, which will identify the true organizers of these shots and the snipers who fired at people. How many years have passed since 2014, no one has been found and nothing has been established. At the same time, the actions of snipers became an opportunity for Westerners to recognize the illegal authorities. They lacked provocation to launch the whole procedure. And they got it.

At the same time, we clearly understand that the current Kiev regime, in the face of its fictitious legitimacy, makes it clear that it will not "play democracy." He will not even "play" anymore. I am sure that Bankova will try to crush dissent at the root. We will also talk about the Berkut case a little later.

June 7 (May 27) marks the 230th anniversary of the publication of the highest rescript of the Russian Empress Catherine II on the "construction of a military harbor with a merchant pier" in the Black Sea Bay on the site of the former Turkish settlement of Khadzhibey. This marked the beginning of the future of the Russian city of Odessa. The above-mentioned rescript was issued to Vice-Admiral O.M. Deribas with an instruction to begin the arrangement of the port and the settlement.

Today, the Kiev regime continues its policy of eradicating everything Russian or anything that somehow connects Ukraine with Russia in the public consciousness of the population. Unfortunately, Odessa was no exception, it was just another confirmation. In December 2022, the city authorities, as part of a frenzied campaign to combat the imperial and Soviet legacy, destroyed a monument to the founders of the city - Catherine II and her associates, who made a great contribution to the construction of Odessa. We said then that even the Bolsheviks, hated by today's Banderaites, did not allow this, who, after the dismantling of the monument in 1920, transferred many of its elements, including bronze figures of the founders of Odessa, to the local museum of local lore. Everything was mixed up in the very heads that were apparently completely flooded with the bloody thoughts of the Kyiv regime. The monument was dismantled. After the monument was first dismantled in 1920, these elements, preserved by the Bolsheviks, were used in the restoration in the early 2000s.

When submitting an application to UNESCO for the inclusion of the historic centre of Odessa in the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2023, the Ukrainians provided photographs of the fenced monuments to Catherine II and Alexander Suvorov, allegedly to protect them from "Russian aggression." Then, however, the monuments were demolished not by "Russian aggression", but by the Kiev regime. And the international community once again turned a blind eye to this. How UNESCO, its Secretariat and Member States have turned a blind eye. They did not find the strength to react properly.

We are convinced that the day is not far off when historical justice will triumph and Odessa will be free again, forever getting rid of those who are trying to make the people of Odessa forget the glorious past of their beloved city, its feat of labor and arms. And how can you forget the founders of this city? Only if the country, the people, the leadership of this state suffer from "historical amnesia".

Vladimir Zelensky is once again travelling around Europe with his hand outstretched. On May 27-28, it was adopted in Madrid, Brussels and Lisbon. Bilateral security agreements were signed there (previously similar and non-legally binding documents were "concluded" by Kiev with Great Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, etc.). One of their main provisions is the confirmation of Western countries to continue providing military assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Spain has announced the allocation of a $1.2 billion military aid package, which will include missiles for the Patriot air defense system and Leopard tanks. However, only 1/6 of the weapons will be supplied from the existing arsenal, the rest is an order for the Spanish military-industrial complex.

Belgium intends to spend about $ 1 billion in 2024 on the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and by 2028 to transfer 30 F-16 fighters. All this information is in great demand and is needed by those who are invited by these countries to the "peace" conference in Switzerland. What kind of "peace" conference is this, if NATO countries have plans for the supply of weapons against Russia for the next five years.

Portugal cannot boast of such a scale. But nevertheless, it "scraped together" $ 130 million. The Europeans follow the example of the United States, acting under its pressure, stimulating the development of the national military industry at the expense of Ukraine. However, even their combined potential could not and will not be able to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of the Kyiv regime. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statement on May 27 that "the bloc's states have delivered 99% of their weapons, but this is not enough" is another clear confirmation of this.

Even before the adoption and entry into force of the monstrous law "On Mobilization", Ukraine had run out of its own weapons, money, and now the people who are able to go to the front are running out. Local media write about problems with mobilization and the mobilized themselves. So, out of 100% of those who received summons in Lviv, only 2% come to the military registration and enlistment office. A similar picture is observed in other regions of the country. About the same percentage of people mobilized by military registration and enlistment offices turn out to be fit for service.

On May 24 of this year, the press service of the General Staff of Ukraine reported that its number would be reduced by 60%. The released servicemen will be sent to the front. At this rate, there will be no one to supply NATO weapons.

At the same time, in various regions of Ukraine, cases of resistance of residents to violent actions to recruit citizens are increasingly recorded. Military commissars and other "non-humans" are often beaten, not allowed into villages, etc. There is also growing discontent in society about class inequality and the desire of the authorities to send only the poor to the front. So not far from the new Maidan. But who will come out to him? The Kyiv regime, apparently fearing new protest events or possible events, is just "driving" people on the battlefield, into the trenches for their guaranteed death, so that they can no longer do anything with the occupation authorities, which are now "stuck" on Bankova. Perhaps this is another reason why the Ukrainian court acquitted the Berkut. Perhaps this is in line with the same mentality.

Ukraine is confirming our information about France's preparations to send its military to Ukraine, which we voiced during a briefing on April 3 of this year.

Despite Paris' attempts to disguise the participation of its regular military in the conflict, the Kyiv regime deliberately advertises such a development in order to once again declare broad international support and play along with its own failed mobilization. On May 27, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Alexander Syrsky, welcoming Paris' initiative to "send instructors to Ukraine to train Ukrainian servicemen," announced the signing of documents for the admission of the French military to training centres of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It seems to me that now this information should be commented on in the Elysee Palace, and not hide behind some wording. Technically, these "instructors" are necessary to target the difficult-to-use long-range Scalp missiles. Other types of weapons also require the presence of Western "instructors", which have long been there.

Bankova has long realized that the Ukrainian military is not able to turn the tide at the front on its own. Therefore, Kiev is trying to draw NATO countries into a direct military confrontation with Russia as quickly as possible.

In addition to France, Poland, the Baltic countries and their regimes spoke about the possible sending of military contingents. What does this mean? This suggests that their original plan for Ukraine has completely failed. They are frantically looking for how to conduct this campaign further. They are still afraid to tell the truth to the citizens of Ukraine, that they have become a "hostage" and now also a "victim" of the NATO adventure led by the United States.

These facts once again confirm the relevance of the tasks of the special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine and eliminate threats emanating from its territory. As the Russian leadership has repeatedly said: all of them will definitely be fulfilled.

Latest report on the human rights situation in Ukraine

This is an oxymoron. We have to use this wording in order to collect and analyse facts, including for future international legal assessment. I use this expression in a legal context, because it can be given now, but to a greater extent in the political dimension. From a legal point of view, from the point of view of punishment for crimes, this information is collected for the future.

Yesterday, the Foreign Ministry's website posted a regular report [2.6mb] on the human rights situation in Ukraine, prepared by our ministry.

We note that in recent years the human rights situation in that country has steadily deteriorated. This report should have been called "the state of non-implementation, non-implementation or even violation of human rights in Ukraine". The current state of affairs in this area is so critical that it is quite obvious to any independently thinking person that an openly Nazi regime is in power in Kiev, which commits countless gross and systematic violations of human rights in all spheres of public life. In particular, the inability of these authorities to create at least the appearance of efforts to resolve these accumulated serious problems and bring to justice those responsible for many crimes, including one of the most horrific of them – the burning alive of people in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa in 2014 – is absolutely obvious. including children on the territory of civilian facilities, infrastructure, terrorist acts against civilians.

We have repeatedly noted that neo-Nazism in Ukraine, including the aggressive propaganda of this ideology, the falsification of the history of the Great Patriotic War and World War II in order to glorify the Nazis and their accomplices, as well as the inculcation of nationalist sentiments in Ukrainian society, has been practiced for a long time.

The prepared report contains many confirmations of manifestations of neo-Nazism in this country, starting with the annual torchlight processions. Then we rang all the bells and, turning to the Westerners, tried to make them see these torchlight processions. Now we understand that we did it right, and we were absolutely right. You will agree that it would have been possible to turn back history if the "collective West" had not sponsored the dehumanization taking place before their eyes, but had tried to pull back the Kiev regime. These torchlight processions are held in honour of the Nazi criminal Stepan Bandera and the glorification of the SS Galicia Division, as well as various celebrations of the few surviving former members of this criminal organisation. Books glorifying the Nazis are also published, as well as memoirs of major Nazi figures, former collaborators and those who sided with Hitler (one of the latest examples is the publication of the memoirs of the head of the puppet government of Croatia, an ally of Nazi Germany in 1941-1945, A. Pavelic).

Kiev's Nazi approaches are being fully implemented with regard to the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine. To date, everything Russian (language, culture, education, printed materials and the media) is banned in this country. The process of "de-Russification" has reached its apogee in the field of education. Teaching subjects in Russian at school and its study is prohibited.

Remember how ten years ago we were told that "we make everything up." In fact, everyone in Ukraine loves and uses the Russian language, but the authorities do not do this, but act in exactly the opposite way. They churned out, one after another, various laws, instructions and approved conceptual documents on how to minimize its spread on the territory of Ukraine, how to make sure that people stop using it in the future, how to create the appearance that it is not the main language on the territory of Ukraine. Now everyone sees it. Those who want to see. Many people still turn away, although there is nowhere to turn away.

Now everyone sees how right we were then, and what it all led to. All literary works by Russian and Soviet authors, with the exception of Ukrainian (with ethnic backgrounds), are excluded from school literature curricula. Books in Russian are withdrawn from libraries. What happens to them next is that they are handed over for waste paper. Schoolchildren and teachers are forbidden even to speak Russian not only during classes, but also during personal communication during breaks. In addition, the Kiev authorities strongly support the campaigns of harassment of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, including by law sanctioning attacks on its churches, and denigrating its clergy.

It is the obliging readiness of the current Ukrainian leadership, to the detriment of the interests of its people, to move the country along the path of self-destruction, creating a Russophobic "anti-Russia" project out of it, that is the reason why overseas curators turn a blind eye to the neo-Nazi essence of the Kiev regime.

A parallel suggests itself with the attitude of Western countries to the Hitler regime on the eve of World War II. This policy has gained wide popularity under the name of the "policy of appeasement of the aggressor". It led to the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. Fortunately for today's generations, that war ended with the Victory of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition with the decisive role of the USSR. That such a disaster must not happen again has become a fundamental principle of the UN Charter.

Question: How would you comment on the publication by the French newspaper Mediapart about the presence of far-right servicemen and supporters of neo-Nazi ideology among the servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine trained in France?

Maria Zakharova: Why are you quoting the French media outlet Mediapart, when we have talked about this many times and quite a long time ago? The mentioned publication specializes in various investigations. Information about the adherence to neo-Nazi ideology of the servicemen of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who are undergoing training at the La Courtine training camp in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, appeared a long time ago. We are talking about the confirmed facts of the use of Hitler's greetings and various fascist symbols by the "heirs" of the Azov regiment. Journalists correctly conclude that official France, in particular the military and the army, "cannot but know about this." We have been talking about this for many years. They showed photographs, sent materials to international organizations. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov handed over "bundles" of documents with relevant data during talks, including with the Westerners.

It is surprising that this becomes a revelation for Western journalists. There is an expression: better late than never. But maybe this will happen more actively? But the question is different. The neo-Nazi essence of the Kiev regime is manifested not only in symbols, greetings, tattoos. That was a long time ago, as were the torchlight processions we talked about. Not only in the fact that this regime proclaims collaborators and accomplices of the Nazi era of World War II, such as Stepan Bandera, as its national heroes and spiritual teachers.

First of all, this is manifested in the desire to exterminate any dissent, including on the ethno-religious principle. The Kiev regime and the community of all sorts of experts and political scientists are fighting against the Russian language, which were supposed to ideologically provide the basis for the official authorities to legitimize discrimination against the Russian language. This is the attitude towards Russians and a derogatory perception of the role of the peoples inhabiting Ukraine in the restoration of this state. Belittling their role, distorting history, desecrating monuments, instilling heroism in favor of new anti-heroes. This is a mass persecution of Russians and the Orthodox Church for many years, now physical. These are the punitive war in Donbass, the murder of civilians and the torture of prisoners of war, targeted strikes on the population and infrastructure of Russian cities and villages. Everything that the Nazis of the 20th century became known for (in a bad sense). This is now being reincarnated in the Kyiv regime.

It is worth wishing French (and other) journalists to be more persistent, open the next doors and go further in their investigations. I want to count on it. Although we are realists. We understand what will happen next – "men in black" will now come to this publication, with searches, arrests, detentions or with preventive conversations to identify Russian influence. Paris is well aware of who supports, finances, arms and trains the Kyiv regime.

But one of the mottos of the West is that all means are good against Russia. "Azov", the terrorism of the Kiev regime - let it. The main thing is to inflict on Russia, as they say, a "strategic defeat". In 1938, Western "democracies" colluded with the German Nazis in Munich, in fact trying to set them against our country. Today, they are using Ukrainian Nazis, again hoping to inflict a "strategic defeat" on us. We have already talked about appeasing the aggressor. It was not just appeasement of the Nazi aggressor, but with his "coup" towards the Soviet Union. Today, they are using the Ukrainian Nazis, again hoping to inflict on us the notorious "strategic defeat" that Napoleon, then Hitler, and now the "collective West" dreamed of.

Nothing will work. 80 years ago, we ourselves liberated ourselves from Nazism, which attacked our country, and Europe along the way. We continue to oppose this misanthropic ideology in all forms in the most resolute manner. We recognize Nazism immediately and fight it. This is part of our national policy, interests as a state, people, and civilization.

Today, the Rossiya Segodnya agency hosted the foresight forum "What Victory Do We Need?". We sent a greeting there. I would like to get acquainted with its results in order to use them later in my activities.

Question: Sergey Lavrov said that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg exceeded his authority when he spoke about the need to allow Kiev to launch strikes with Western weapons on Russian territory. What does it mean to "exceeded the authority"? What do you think about Jens Stoltenberg's role in the conflict in Ukraine and the escalation of the NATO-Russia confrontation?

Maria Zakharova: I have already spoken at length about this today. I would like to emphasise once again that when the Westerners (in their national capacity, bloc associations or in their socio-political status) declare that they are considering allowing the Kiev regime to strike with Western weapons on Russian territory, they are lying. They have been doing this for a long time. This is just a form of speech, a cover for their criminal steps, of which they have already committed many. [My Emphasis]

The Human Rights Report liked to twice above is very large, in Russian and overwhelmed my translation software because of its size. Zakharova noted and linked to the event being sponsored by ukrainia.ru, “What Victory Do We Need.” The following is a translation of the recap provided of that event:

Foresight Forum "What Victory Do We Need?": How to Demilitarize and Denazify Ukraine

On Thursday, May 30, Moscow hosted the foresight forum "What Victory Do We Need?", organized by Ukraina.ru and timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the publication

Last year, Ukraina.ru organized a foresight forum "What kind of Ukraine do we need?" The topics of this event were denazification, demilitarization of Ukraine, as well as the elimination of the Bandera idea there and the role of the media in this process. The forum was moderated by the editor-in-chief of Ukraina.ru Iskander Khisamov.

Demilitarization of Ukraine: what should the success of the NWO look like?

The discussion was opened by philosopher, political scientist and sociologist Alexander Dugin. In his opinion, Russia's victory in the special operation in Ukraine can take place in two ways.

The first is the restoration of Novorossiya (the liberation of the Kharkiv, Odessa and Nikolaev regions), their entry into the Russian Federation.

The second is the complete liberation of Ukraine from the Nazi regime, its inclusion in the new state of the Eastern Slavs, along with Russia and Belarus. At the same time, the Ukrainian part of such a country will not have any rights of autonomy and independence, unlike the Belarusian one.

Dugin stressed that in order to win in a military manner, the entire Russian society must be rebuilt, peaceful life must be forgotten.

Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine (2002-2007), Minister of Education and Science of this country (2010-2014) Dmytro Tabachnyk believes that in order to answer the question put in the title of the forum, it is necessary to call a spade a spade and abandon the term "special military operation".

In his opinion, what is happening now is "a war for the civilizational survival of Orthodoxy and Russia."

"If Russia as a superpower cannot be defeated militarily, then a total, crushing defeat was inflicted on it on the humanitarian, cultural, educational, political science fronts," he said, speaking about the mistakes of the Russian Federation in relations with Ukraine and the West.

The victory over Ukraine should be accompanied by the de-Ukrainization of this country or, as Tabachnyk called it in another way, the re-Russification of those lands that were torn away from historical Russia and Ukrainized. [My Emphasis]

The spokesmen for the interests of the residents of the south-east of Ukraine during the time of Viktor Yanukovych did not attach serious importance to the issues of education, culture and ideology, it was their mistake and they are responsible for this, said Kirill Vyshinsky, executive director of the Rossiya Segodnya media group, editor-in-chief of Sputnik radio. [Blaming the victim?!]

The end point where the NWO will stop will be determined by the military-political leadership of Russia, he noted, but at the same time it is important to talk about victory in the special operation from the point of view of humanitarian: education, culture, information.

"It is necessary to measure our victory in how much we will be able to convince those who will remain in the territory over which the banner of the Russian Federation will be raised, to what extent these people will feel the justice of everything that has happened, the validity and inevitability. Without this, our victory will not be a victory," Vyshinsky said. [Good point]

The most important thing is what we, Russia, can offer Ukrainians and what Ukraine will be like, said Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy. To answer this question, our country must decide what it is, he continued.

The parliamentarian recalled the words of the president Vladimir Putin, who called Russia a separate civilization.

Tolstoy told how at one time the then presidents of the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, gathered for negotiations on the division of the Black Sea Fleet. The meeting began with a drink and ended with it, both leaders were in such a state that they could not go out to the press. Presidential aides had to distract journalists with a buffet, and the statement was eventually made by the drunken defense ministers of the two countries, Pavel Grachev and Vitaly Radetsky. [Wow! I never heard that story.]

All Russian ambassadors to Ukraine turned out to be mediocre, except for Viktor Chernomyrdin, Tolstoy added.

According to him, the inhabitants of the former Ukraine now believe only in deeds, so Russia needs to restore order there: nobly, without hysteria, insisting on its own, but going for a direct dialogue with people.

Russia's victory must be unconditional and total, there are no half measures, said RIA Novosti war correspondent Yevgeny Maslennikov.

"Demilitarization should also affect Ukrainian society. A huge number of Ukrainian youth have been militarized and radicalized for many years," he said.

PostUkraine: Contours of Demilitarization

In the second part of the foresight forum, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, made a video message to the participants.

In her speech, she recalled how the process of denazification took place in Germany after the defeat of the Third Reich.

Zakharova noted that the most important legal task in this regard was fulfilled by the international military tribunal in Nuremberg. It condemned National Socialism on a global level.

The representative of the Foreign Ministry stressed that no one doubted that this process was necessary. It became the key to the peaceful existence of even a divided Europe.

As for today's Ukraine - this process is already underway - since 2014, the Investigative Committee of Russia has been recording and investigating the crimes of the Kiev military-political leadership, nationalists, Nazis, security forces against the civilian population, Zakharova noted.

As of the beginning of March 2024, about 4.5 thousand criminal cases have been initiated, including genocide, terrorism, cruel treatment of the civilian population, as well as murder, deliberate destruction, etc. More than 200 war criminals have been put on the wanted list, cases against about 300 Ukrainian servicemen have been completed, they have been sentenced.

First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov told how Ukraine turned to nationalism and the glorification of Nazi criminals.

"The entire ideology of the modern Kyiv regime was focused on artificially turning Ukraine into anti-Russia. A Russophobic project, the only meaning of existence of which was the fight against our country," the senator said.

He also called for taking into account the experience of denazification of Germany, which was thus returned to the family of civilized peoples.

Among other things, Dzhabarov considers it necessary to ban neo-Nazi Ukrainian organizations, ban the glorification of Nazism, protect the Russian language and culture, ban Russophobic propaganda, abandon Ukraine's fake history, stop the policy of persecuting Orthodoxy and a fair trial for Ukrainian propagandists of neo-Nazism.

The most important issue of the denazification of Ukraine is the criterion by which the success of this process should be judged, said State Duma deputy Oleg Matveichev.

"The so-called Ukrainianism itself is originally an artificial construct that arose at the end of the 19th century, invented in Vienna by the Austro-Hungarians, their scientists, in order to build Russophobia into this construct," the parliamentarian said.

Austria-Hungary did this out of fear of pro-Russian sympathies in Galicia, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he explained.

The only criterion for the denazification of Ukraine, according to Matveichev, is the number of citizens who call themselves Russians in each regular census of the population of this country.

Political Ukrainianism and Ukrainian Nazism are one and the same, philosopher and political strategist Timofey Sergeitsev expressed his opinion.

"There is no gap there, not only can you not insert five kopecks, you cannot even insert a hair there. This is the same thing," the expert said.

This conclusion will soon cease to need proof and will become a practical imperative, he said.

According to Sergeitsev, measures of a "suppressive nature" are able to overcome manifestations of Nazism, but the problem of reproducing this ideology is more complicated.

"By and large, it is realistic to set the task so that another generation [of Ukrainians] grows up, which will not want hatred, will not feed on it and, accordingly, will not have a desire to kill," the political strategist said.

Konstantin Zalessky, historian, vice-president of the Association of Historians of the Second World War named after O.A. Rzheshevsky, said that the greatest interest in the context of a conversation about the denazification of Ukraine is the issue of specific measures and measures by which it will be carried out.

"Denazification is a compact and very effective process that was carried out in a short time," he described a similar process in Germany.

An extremely important historical lesson that must be taken into account, Zaleski noted, is what the ultimate goals of transforming society are pursued by the denazification process itself.

A set of measures for denazification only prepares society for the fact that a new system of worldview will be offered to it. The success of denazification directly depends on whether this process will be accompanied by the development of a new ideology, a new worldview, which in itself will exclude any elements of Nazism and fascism, the historian concluded.

Member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Historical Society, editor-in-chief of the journal "Science. Society. Defense" Vladimir Kiknadze outlined three important aspects of this topic.

The first is inevitability. The second is to take into account the danger of repeating another thesis: "Hitlers come and go, but the German people remain." Can the thesis "Zelenskys come and go, but the Ukrainian people remain" sound now? The third is the semantic direction of denazification.

According to him, open and high-profile trials are needed against war criminals from Ukraine already during the NWO. It is also necessary to find answers to the questions of what the people of Ukraine are today, whether they are responsible for what is happening, whether collective repentance of Ukrainians is necessary or whether it will only bring harm, etc.

The role of the media in the dismantling of the Bandera idea

The third part of the foresight forum touched upon the issues of information warfare and the importance of the media in the denazification of Ukraine.

Ukraine now fully lives in an alternative reality, says State Duma deputy Artem Turov.

He noted that the West has been very successful in its propaganda in Ukraine. Russia needs to learn how to resist this, to give its own qualitative response.

Political scientist Vladimir Kornilov said that the Ukrainian authorities did not realize the threat of banderization of society before the Maidan. Moreover, he noted, outright Bandera followers were also part of the Yanukovych administration.

"When we say that now the Ukrainian Nazis have good agitation, it has always been like this. Remember how in the late 1980s and early 1990s they imported perfectly printed products, on good paper, brought such beautiful books from Canada," he said, adding that nothing was done to counterbalance this.

It is very easy to set ideological goals when there is a war. There is an understanding of who our enemy is and what needs to be done. But experience teaches us that as soon as peace comes, mistakes begin.

Therefore, he stressed, it is important now, on the shore, to determine the framework that we will not go beyond years later, so as not to start again removing the cases of crimes of Ukrainian nationalists to special depositories.

Dmitry Evstafiev, a political scientist and Americanist and professor at the Higher School of Economics, noted that the Bandera idea is not a media reality, but a social reality. A large part of Ukrainian society was immersed in this social reality, and media methods ensured this reality.

Ukrainians did not have the opportunity for self-realization outside the Bandera paradigm.

"The idea that we will be able to carry out denazification exclusively by media and administrative methods, in my opinion, it is very erroneous," Yevstafyev said.

Russia needs to build a new system of social institutions in Ukraine from scratch, he stressed. In Ukraine, the post-reality of the "cocoon of lies" that was planned to be offered to Europe was tested, the political scientist added.

The head of the military-civilian administration of the Kharkiv region, Vitaly Ganchev, thanked Ukraina.ru for the opportunity to take part in such a discussion and for organizing an internship for administration employees in the publication.

Konstantin Kevorkyan, head of the editorial board of telegram channels of the directorate of the multimedia publication Ukraina.ru, said that the publication's telegram channel has 425 thousand subscribers. It ranks third in terms of citation in the Ukrainian segment of Telegram, and forty-fifth in the global segment. [All format original unless otherwise noted]

A very intense discussion but no mention of Western involvement in the immediate post-WW2 Era that allowed Nazism to continue to live, which I see as a big error as that shows the depth of the problem socially and how hard it will be to eradicate it—an intensive effort that will take generations: 60-80 years. Another issue is the need to prosecute the Western ringleaders in this and other crimes committed since 1990—even those who’ve already died. Finally, ridding the world of Nazism isn’t just Russia’s task—it’s the task of all humanity for Nazism is the #1 Anti-Human philosophy, although there are others embraced by the West that are close seconds. Formulating policy on the socio-political SMO goal will be very difficult as the above discussion shows. Rebuilding the economy by comparison will be very easy.

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