May 8 is observed throughout most of the world as the day of victory by the Allies over Nazi Germany in World War II
And the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day is certainly an occasion for remembrance and reflection, and especially in Ukraine.
Divided until 1939 between the Soviet Union and Poland, Ukraine was a prime target for both Hitler and Stalin. As the renowned American historian Timothy Snyder has pointed out, both “understood Ukraine as a breadbasket,” and Hitler coveted it as the location for “lebensraum.” That is the preferred colonized living space for the German master race.
For both dictators, it was “a territory that had to be controlled if you wanted to be a world power, whether you were in Berlin, or whether you were in Moscow.”
At first, it suited Hitler and Stalin to be allies, or rather accomplices in crime. As a result of the infamous secret Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939, they agreed to carve up Eastern Europe between themselves. Their collusion paved the way for Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland the following month which marked the beginning of World War II.
Virtually simultaneously the Red Army occupied the eastern part of Poland, ostensibly to “liberate” Ukrainian and Belarusian populations living there. Hence, from the very outset, Ukrainian territories figured as an objective.
Hitler’s sudden invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, primarily via Ukraine, transformed the allies into mortal enemies. Ukraine became the main crucible of their horrendous war. The human losses and devastation which the conflict brought to this land, whose population less than a decade ago had suffered decimation from Stalin’s Holodomor and political purges, were staggering.
How indeed did Ukraine manage to survive this bloodbath and severe hemorrhaging of its population?
The millions of civilian and military casualties, the Holocaust targeting the Jewish population, the deportation of more than two million young people for forced labor in Nazi Germany, the mass killings in Volyhnia in 1943 as Poles and Ukrainians continued to settle scores, and the armed resistance movement of the Ukrainian nationalists in western Ukraine, first against the Nazis and then, continuing into the 1950s, Soviet forces, and the brutal means used to pacify their region.
And yet, miraculously, Ukraine somehow managed to retain and even re-emphasize its existence and place on the political map of the world.
Although physically emaciated by the enormous losses, it actually emerged stronger as a latent political factor and claimant to independent statehood. First, its territories were united for the first time in its modern history in a nominally Ukrainian state – the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, albeit under the control of Moscow with its revamped Soviet empire.
Secondly, also exactly 75 years ago, between April and June 1945, regardless of the politics involved from Stalin’s perspective, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was represented at the San Francisco conference as a founder of the United Nations and took its seat among its constituent members.
For Ukraine, World War II was, therefore, not only a massive wound and trauma but also a reboot that left a profound mark on the consciousness of the population in more ways than one.
And almost 30 years after Ukraine finally achieved independence, it remains a source of controversy, manipulation, and division. This is hardly surprising. From Stalin right up until its final year or two under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union suppressed the truth about many aspects of World War II.
It was only in April 1990 that Gorbachev admitted that Moscow had murdered 22,000 Polish officers and civilians in 1940 while an ally of Hitler in Katyn and Kharkiv but still refused to acknowledge the Nazi-Soviet pact.
After decades of denial, Russia released the documents only in October 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The current leader of Russia, Vladimir Putin, has reversed this temporary move in the direction of greater truthfulness and has reimposed a revisionist line that seeks to both exonerate Moscow of any blame for the start of World War II and collaboration with Nazi Berlin.
At the same time, it invokes the victory over Germany, selectively interpreted as primarily the achievement of Russia, to justify Moscow’s revived claims to great power status and a license to exert its influence as it sees fit over its neighbors and beyond.
Putin’s calculated rewriting of history has already caused a major conflict with Poland, on whom he seeks to shift the blame for the outbreak of World War II on. And Ukraine, where the distortion of history still remains an undeniable factor and public opinion is divided, has been caught in the middle.
Sadly, historical memory in Ukraine even as regards more recent developments seems to be short, or selective.
How many people remember Putin’s claim that the Russians would have managed to defeat Nazi Germany even without the contribution made to the war effort by millions of Ukrainians, and not only in the Red Army?
Moreover, Russia continues its war against former “brotherly” Ukraine.
Fortunately, 2020 has turned into a nightmare for Putin. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, he has had to postpone the planned parade in Red Square on May 9 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, the main credit for which he had intended to claim for Russia. It gets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky off the hook and provides more time, if this is really needed, to position Kyiv firmly and unambiguously on the side of historical truth and its partners.
Such a clear stand will also help dispel lingering confusion and disinformation within Ukraine itself. After all, 75 years on, the reality is that the two key former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Russia, are in a state of real, albeit undeclared war, because of Moscow’s attempts to reassert its hegemony. Moreover, and ironically, Germany is one of the peace brokers and Poland a staunch supporter of Ukraine’s independence.
