May 8 marked the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day), the end of World War II in Europe, specifically the capitulation of Nazi forces to the Allies (the Soviet Union, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and other Allied countries). Joining with the United States and Europe in this milestone event, both Ukraine and Russia sought to commemorate this occasion – the former to gain proper recognition for its role in the victory and to draw attention to the ongoing Russia-sponsored conflict on its territory, and the latter as another opportunity to build national self-esteem and to present itself as a dominant world power.
In Ukraine
On April 9, 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Law on De-Communization, which helped to introduce in Ukraine the European tradition of a prayerful and solemn celebration of the victory over Nazism in World War II. On that date, Ukraine adopted the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation (to be observed on May 8), which occurs before the now Russian holiday of Victory Day (May 9).
Facebook/Volodymyr Zelenskyy
On Victory Day in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy greets two veterans: Ukrainian Insurgent Army messenger Paraskeva Zelenchuk-Potiak and 101-year-old Ivan Zaluzhnyi, a Marine captain of the Soviet armed forces.
In the legislation, the Parliament explicitly banned Communist and Nazi propaganda. And it replaced use of the Soviet (and now Russian) term “the Great Patriotic War” with “World War II.” This change had great significance since between 1939 and 1941 the USSR was in a pact with Germany and invaded six countries while the Nazis were occupying Europe. As its new commemorative symbol, Ukraine embraced the red poppy to honor victims of all military and civilian armed conflicts. With this initiative Ukraine moved closer to the West in its commemoration, both in date and in spirit.
The Soviet-legacy Victory Day is still observed on May 9 in Ukraine to honor the aging veterans of World War II and their families, but without the fanfare of military parades or displays of might and weapons.
According to the publication commemorating the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazism in World War II that was released five years ago by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Ukraine’s total losses in the war ranged from 8 million to 10 million people – equal to the population of modern Austria or Hungary. There are only two countries in the world whose total losses exceeded the losses of the Ukrainian people in World War II: Russia (14 million) and China (15 million).
On the battlefront, Ukrainians’ fight against the Nazis predated that of the USSR. Ukrainians of the Transcarpathian region of pre-war Czechoslovakia first challenged the Nazis in 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland. Ukrainians clustered in the Carpathian region of the country declared independence in 1939 and formed Carpathian Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians from the region, joined by compatriots from the Ukrainian population of Poland, fought heroically against the enemy in 1938-1939 in the military organization Carpathian Sich until the Nazis and their Hungarian allies consolidated their grip on these territories.
In 1939, 120,000 Ukrainians from the Halychyna region fought losing battles in the Polish Army against Wehrmacht troops.
Some 6 million to 7 million Ukrainians fought in the Soviet Army in 1941-1945, comprising up to 25 percent of the combatants – by far the largest non-Russian contingent. Among them were 200 generals and seven commanders of various armies and fronts. Over 3 million military fighters died in combat or in prisons. Half of the survivors sustained injuries and remained invalids. For their heroism, 2.5 million medals were awarded and over 2,000 Ukrainian combatants were recognized with the prestigious title Hero of the Soviet Union, some several times over.
Importantly, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance (UINR) recognizes the formations of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), comprising up to 100,000 soldiers, who actively fought against the Nazi invaders and later, until the 1950s, against the Soviet system. According to UINR sources, some 80,000 Ukrainians from the diaspora were on the fronts with the United States Army, 45,000 with the British Royal Army (including representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Canada – then a Dominion of the British Empire) and 6,000 with the French Armed Forces. Ukrainians who fought as part of the French Foreign Legion are the only foreigners whose World War II participation is officially recognized and honored in France today.
Today, having to fight on still another front, Ukraine continues, both domestically and internationally, to highlight Russian aggression in Ukraine and to honor its heroes on the frontlines as well as its veterans and their families. The ongoing war in eastern Ukraine – undeclared and denied by Russia, and devastatingly hybrid in nature – has lasted six years. The violence has claimed over 14,000 lives, displaced almost 2 million civilians and wreaked havoc on Ukraine’s economy.
With its ongoing aggression against Ukraine, Russia has destroyed the post-World War II collective security system and violated a basic principle of international law that emerged from the conflict: the inviolability of post-war borders.
In Russia
The Great Patriotic War and Victory Day have become cornerstones of Russian ideology, serving as the basis for the formation of an “exceptionalist” national Russian identity and a unified people. Mass patriotism and sacrifices against a common threat in the name of the Motherland are emphasized as a major policy for survival and indeed, victory. The Great Victory of 1945 is used to justify all past crimes and continues to provide a kind of indulgence for the future. The campaign to save Europe demonstrated a military might and sacrifice of the people that elevated the USSR in the eyes of the world and still serves to inspire Russia in its never-ending quest to play a major role on the world stage.
Russia, like the USSR before it, studiously avoids the term “World War II” and uses “Great Patriotic War” instead in order not to draw attention to the international activities of the USSR prior to June 1941. Recall that World War II began with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. The Nazis invaded Ukraine and the USSR in June 1941. Before the war moved onto its territory in 1941, the USSR provided minerals, food and logistical support to the Nazis as they were building strength. And on August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and fascist Germany formally signed a nonaggression treaty, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which enabled the two powers to divide up Poland between them and defined the “boundaries of spheres of interest” for each party. For the USSR, this led to the takeover of the Baltic states in 1940 and the expansion of Soviet borders into western Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Romania. For the Nazis, this enabled a swift, largely unobstructed, defeat not only of Poland but also of France, Belgium and other Western European countries.
Throughout this almost two-year period (when World War II was raging in Europe before June 1941) the USSR continued to provide raw materials, food and other assistance to Germany in support of the Nazi war effort and in violation of the British blockade against Germany.
Russian historians and propagandists are still trying to explain the Nazi-Soviet partnership as a necessity imposed on the Soviet Union by the international situation of that time. In a statement from the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry on August 20, 2019, Sergei Lavrov stated: “In these circumstances, the Soviet Union had to go it alone to ensure its national security and sign a non-aggression pact with Germany. This forced move made it possible to better prepare for the coming war with the aggressor. Today, it is worth reminding everyone that our country made a decisive contribution to defeating the Hitler war machine and liberating Europe and the world from Nazism.”
But the truth is that Joseph Stalin had planned and supported a war that would allow Western European countries to destroy each other, opening a way for the Communist revolution and Soviet domination of Europe. Prior to June 1941, the USSR was an enabler of the Nazi war effort. The term collaborator is apt.
That is why Russian ideologists cultivate the remembrance of the Soviet-German war of 1941-1945 – the so-called Great Patriotic War. Here the USSR was not the aggressor, but a victim and, most importantly, the liberator – the country that broke the back of Nazism.
Moscow has always maintained that it was the Russian people who were mainly responsible for the victory, that they carried “the heavy burden of the war.” In fact, in 2010 the current Kremlin leader stated that Russians “would have won by themselves.” In elevating Russia’s claims, President Putin has boasted that “Russia is a nation of victors,” while simultaneously downplaying the contributions of other countries and nations in defeating Nazism.
With Mr. Putin’s rise to power, the Russian leadership emphasized its great history, and national holidays/commemorations became a principal source of national pride and self-esteem. In 2015, some 30 leaders, including those of China and India, attended the 70th anniversary celebration of Victory Day, while Western leaders boycotted the ceremonies because of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. This year’s edition of the parade, marking the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, was first postponed by Russia due to the coronavirus pandemic but is being promoted and commemorated online using Russia’s formidable psychological and social media information/disinformation skills.
It is precisely now that Russian propaganda is intensifying, raising its “victory” rhetoric, resurrecting old Soviet propaganda clichés, such as references to “collaborators,” “Ukrainian fascists,” “Banderovtsi” (followers of Stepan Bandera), etc. and disseminating this disinformation among the world community. As it continues to enflame ethnic tensions and undermine Euro-Atlantic unity, Russia boasts of its 1945 victory, its military might and prowess, and has adopted an aggressive slogan for this year’s 75th anniversary: “Mozhem Povtoryt!” (We Can Do It Again!).
For Ukraine, in celebrating the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation as well as Victory Day, it was important to solemnly yet proudly remember the heroic contributions of its soldiers and its people to the victory in World War II, and to show respect to all fighters against Nazism, including the participants of the national liberation movements. To honor the memory of the fallen warriors as well as all the victims of the war, Ukraine adopted a more peaceful slogan for its commemoration: “Never Again!”
Myron Melnyk is welfare officer of Ukrainian American Veterans Post 33 in New Haven, Conn.