#nazi soviet pact

[evilelitest2]

Hot take: I know it started as backlash towards America centric view of history and implicit lionification of American jingoism, but the "USSR won the WW2, they single-handedly kicked the Nazi ass with no help" is, if not equally tiresome, at least getting there. Yes, we get it, the biggest piece of shit in modern history got defeated by the second biggest who pretty much destroyed his country to do it, you don't have to be so smug about it.

I"m sorry for taking so long to get back to that Covid was...Covid was a hell of a time.

So to get into the history of this, no one country won WWII by itself, the whole point of WWII was that a bunch of powerful nations allied together to crush Fascism (eventually). So no one nation did it all by thesmelves, American jingoism of "We showed up inad crushed the Nazis by ourself, no Canadians or Brits at DDay" is obviously nonsense. And that also applies to the Soviet Union.

So the Sovets 100% did the most killing of the nazis, and they certianly did most of the dying. 9 out of every 10 europeon fascists. And they also lost the most people, somewhere between 27-35 million soviet citizens died during the war, some historians think it might even be as high as 40 million, like the level of fighting on the Eastern Front is a nightmare. However the Soviets were doing that fighting with American bullets, american uniforms, American jeeps, American tents, American food, and American medical supples. If the US had stayed neutral in WWII after 1941, then the Soviets might have won the war anyways but it would have been far harder, taken far longer and probably destroyed the soviet union. Hell Japan might have taken another shot at the East. The US was the great "arsenal of democracy" in WWII and that ultiamtley mattered as much as fighting. Both sides pretending they were the only protagonists of the fight.

Now many nations are pretty justified for calling the US out not joining for the first 3 years of WWII, like when Brits are like "Hey you guys were staying neutral when you shouldn't." fair enough. But when people from the former Soviet Union call the US out, I'm like "We joined six months later" There is a six month period where the USSR is fighting Fascism and the US is not, between June 1941 (start of Operation Barbarossa) and September 7th 1941 (Pearl Harbor). Before that, the US was staying neutral in the war (bastards) and the Soviets were worse than neutral, being the main suppler of oil to Hitler and engaging in imperalism (Poland, Finland).

Also part of the reason why the Soviet Union took so many losses was because of how badly run the Soviet union was run.

TLDR: no one nation can take full credit for the war, and the US and the USSR are both really annothing about trying to pretend they were the only winners of the war

[tomorrowusa]

On this day in 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Hitler was already conducting an invasion from the west and Stalin joined him by invading Poland from the east.

This double invasion was part of the agreement drawn up by the foreign ministers of Nazi Germany and the USSR less than a month before.

As a result of the double invasion, the two worst people in the 20th century got to divide Eastern Europe between themselves.

Of course dictators do not necessarily stick to agreements with each other. On 22 June 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact became null and void.

History reverberates – more so in Eastern Europe than in most places.

What the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact tells us about today’s war in Ukraine

Here's a vid made by Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs about a year ago.

[stillunusual]

The International Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism….

[septictankie]

Myth: Stalin and the USSR collaborated with Hitler and Nazi Germany before WW2

Reality: Stalin and the USSR raised alarm bells about Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan before WW2, but the capitalist Allies rejected Soviet attempts at collective security

[enriquemzn262]

Russia trying to claim the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was actually a humanitarian operation meant to stop a made-up genocide, only for Germany to come out with a map presented to fucking Hitler of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which effectively set the stage for the combined invasion of the country and its partition between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, has to be the best destruction of modern state propaga I’ve ever seen!

[apas-95]

Do you have any good reads on the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact? I don’t trust wikipedia on this because all sources are from anglo-american sources and one is from radio free europe lol

I'm bad at giving reading references, but in brief: the USSR first approached each of the western powers and attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance, but none of them aggreed, because they wanted the Nazis to weaken or outright destroy the USSR, and kill two birds with one stone (hence the 'appeasement' period); all the other powers had their own treaties with Germany that were generally equivalent wrt non-aggression; and the USSR eventually formed its own non-aggression treaty with Germany *because* they and everyone else knew Germany was planning to invade and genocide the USSR, so they needed as much time as possible to prepare their defences (for their piece, the Nazis would expect increased war preparations on the part of the USSR to actually *benefit* their invasion, as they hoped that the USSR would dedicate all its forces to its western border, and have them decisively encircled and destroyed all at once with the initial, speedy push - the USSR showed great restraint and forced Germany instead to commit to a lengthy, protracted invasion to fight the bulk of the Soviet army in its own depth). The Soviet occupation of Poland, while having its obvious negative aspects, also prevented further Nazi advance, and prevented the Nazi occupation of half of Poland, during which time Polish jews were able to be evacuated - and lest we forget that Poland itself was an extremely reactionary, antisemitic state at the time already. The USSR only occupied Polish territory once it became clear that the Nazis would not stop at the part of Poland designated to be in 'their sphere', and would continue to occupy the part that was technically protected in the treaty by being designated as part of the 'Soviet sphere'. The idea of a 'Nazi-Soviet alliance' that carved up Poland is a key piece of ideological justification for the equivocation of fascism and communism, and, along with the 'double genocide' myth, was perpetrated directly by the Nazis themselves.

[mariacallous]

For 700 years, Moscow has expanded through relentless land grabs, growing into the largest country on Earth while subjugating countless nations.

In a recent video address, President Zelenskyy appeared wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Make Russia Small Again.” But this isn’t just a catchy phrase—it’s a call for historical justice and a reminder of Russia’s centuries-old imperial ambitions.

The T-shirt displays a map of the Grand Duchy of Moscow as it was in 1462, under the rule of Prince Ivan III, who sought to break free from the Golden Horde’s dominance. This era marked the beginning of Muscovy’s expansionist campaigns, during which it claimed lands beyond its borders. In the following years, neighboring principalities such as Yaroslavl, Tver, Ryazan, and Rostov were conquered—the same region that made headlines in August 2024 when Ukrainian forces advanced into it.

Even back then, Moscow employed methods that would become its standard practice for centuries—deportation. After conquering the Novgorod Republic, Moscow forcibly relocated its population to other regions. This move was designed to crush any resistance, as Novgorod had long been independent and a powerful rival to Moscow. By dismantling its center of influence, Moscow eliminated any hope for independence and silenced the potential for protest.

It was Ivan III who first declared himself “Tsar of All Rus,” even though he had never ruled over the lands of Kyivan Rus and merely aspired to conquer them. Over time, his ambitions extended to the northern territories of modern Ukraine—Siveria and Chernihiv regions.

The territory of Tatarstan, where the BRICS summit took place in Kazan in 2024, was conquered in the mid-16th century. These lands have never historically belonged to Russia.

In the following centuries, Moscow simultaneously pushed in all directions—deep into Siberia, south to the Caucasus, even waging war with modern-day Iran, while also advancing westward. The empire continuously grew, fueled by a desire to extend its global influence. When Peter I proclaimed the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, he claimed to be “reclaiming lands,” but in reality, it was a relentless campaign of conquest. Like every other empire, Russia’s expansion was built on the systematic expansion of its territories and subjugation of the peoples within them.

A particularly revealing example is Alaska. Russia sold the territory because it lacked the resources to maintain control, while the U.S. initially hesitated over whether it was worth purchasing.

Even in the 20th century, after the collapse of the Russian Empire and the rise of the Soviet Union, Russia continued its territorial conquests. In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—a secret agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union—was signed. This pact divided Poland and carved out spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, effectively igniting the start of World War II.

While global empires were letting go of their colonies and former vassals were gaining independence, the Kremlin remained focused on expanding its influence. Moscow backed the war in Korea, as well as numerous other military conflicts, particularly in Asia. Its socialist-communist reach extended well beyond Asia.

Russia is a vast prison of nations. Over centuries, it has conquered vast territories, and in doing so, has not only seized land but also sought to erase the identities of the peoples it subjugated—just as it did in Novgorod. Native inhabitants were deported and resettled elsewhere. Crimean Tatars were forcibly expelled from Crimea, while people from central Russia were relocated to Ukraine’s Donbas.

The “Make Russia Small Again” T-shirt symbolizes a call for historical justice: Moscow was a principality in 1462. The history of the territories beyond serves as a reminder that Russia’s big size is the result of imperial conquest, with many nations still trapped in a sprawling colony.

[lookninjas]

So I was curious as to why exactly Russia was calling for the arrest of Estonian PM Kaja Kallas, and it turns out they're pissed off at her for taking down Soviet monuments in Estonia.

As a reminder, the Soviet Union invaded Estonia in 1939 as part of a joint operation with Nazi Germany for the two countries to divide Europe between them (the Molotov-Ribbentrof pact). They briefly lost control when Germany decided they could have all Europe, not just half, but reoccupied the Baltic nations as the war turned against the Nazis. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania remained occupied by the USSR until 1991.

Just. The unmitigated gall of it. Claiming that the warrant is about her removing tributes to the "heroes" that "denazified" Estonia. Charging the leader of a sovereign nation with committing an offense against Russian laws, as though she's somehow subject to them.

If there was ever any doubt in you -- if ever for a second you thought that maybe the Russian government could be stopped from invading other countries by any means other than overwhelming force -- I need you really to think hard about what this means. That they're still acting like Estonia is their territory to occupy. That they think their laws apply to the leaders of other nations.

Russia will not stop until they are stopped. That's it. That's all.

[marykk1990]

My next post in support of Ukraine is:

Next site, the city of Zhovkva in Lviv Oblast. The city was founded in 1597 as a private fortified town and was originally named Żółkiew after its founder, hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, a Polish military commander. During WWII, the city was occupied first by the soviet union in 1939 when the soviets, then allied with Nazi Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, attacked Poland. Later, in 1941, after Hitler broke their pact, the city was occupied by the Nazis. 3,200 Jews of the city were sent to Belzec, a Nazi extermination camp. The Nazis also blew up the Great Synagogue in the city in 1941. After WWII, the city became part of the soviet union again, & part of the Ukrainian SSR. Its name was changed to Nesterov in 1951 after the WWI "russian" aviator, Pyotr Nesterov. In 1992, after Ukrainian Independence, its name was changed to Zhovkva, the Ukrainian spelling of the original name of Żółkiew.

#StandWithUkraine

#СлаваУкраїні 🇺🇦🌻

[whencyclopedia]

The Causes of WWII

The origins of the Second World War (1939-45) may be traced back to the harsh peace settlement of the First World War (1914-18) and the economic crisis of the 1930s, while more immediate causes were the aggressive invasions of their neighbours by Germany, Italy, and Japan. A weak and divided Europe, an isolationist USA, and an opportunistic USSR were all intent on peace, but the policy of appeasement only delivered what everyone most feared: another long and terrible world war.

The main causes of WWII were:

The harsh Treaty of Versailles

The economic crisis of the 1930s

The rise of fascism

Germany's rearmament

The cult of Adolf Hitler

The policy of appeasement by Western powers

Treaties of mutual interest between Axis Powers

Lack of treaties between the Allies

The territorial expansion of Germany, Italy, and Japan

The Nazi-Soviet Pact

The invasion of Poland in September 1939

The Japanese attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour

Treaty of Versailles

Germany was defeated in the First World War, and the victors established harsh terms to ensure that some of the costs of the war were recuperated and to prevent Germany from becoming a future threat. With European economies and populations greatly damaged by the war, the victors were in no mood to be lenient since Germany had almost won and its industry was still intact. Germany remained a dangerous state. However, Britain and France did not want a totally punitive settlement, as this might lead to lasting resentment and make Germany unable to become a valuable market for exports.

The peace terms were set out in the Treaty of Versailles, signed by all parties except the USSR on 28 June 1919. The Rhineland must be demilitarised to act as a buffer zone between Germany and France. All colonies and the Saar, a coal-rich area of western Germany, were removed from German authority. Poland was given the industrial area of Upper Silesia and a corridor to the sea, which included Danzig (Gdánsk) and cut off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. France regained the regions of Alsace and Lorraine. Germany had to pay war reparations to France and Belgium. Germany had limits on its armed forces and could not build tanks, aircraft, submarines, or battleships. Finally, Germany was to accept complete responsibility, that is the guilt, for starting the war. Many Germans viewed the peace terms as highly dishonourable.

The settlement established nine new countries in Eastern Europe, a recipe for instability since all of them disputed their borders, and many contained large minority groups who claimed to be part of another country. Germany, Italy, and Russia, once powerful again after the heavy costs of WWI, looked upon these fledgling states with imperialist envy.

In the 1920s, Germany signed two important treaties. The Locarno Treaty of 1925 guaranteed Germany's western borders but allowed some scope for change in the east. The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed by 56 countries. All the major powers promised not to conduct foreign policy using military means. In 1929, Germany's reparations as stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles were reduced from £6.6 million to £2 million. In 1932, the reparations were cancelled altogether. This was all very promising, but through the 1930s, the complex web of European diplomacy began to quickly unravel in a climate of economic decline.

Continue reading...

[newhistorybooks]

As the Chicago Tribune’s bureau chief in Berlin, Sigrid Schultz interviewed Hitler, broke the story of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and reported firsthand from the death camps. She deserves to be far better known than she is, and in The Dragon from Chicago, Pamela Toler admirably rescues her legacy.

[thelostdreamsthings]

On this day 1945, Russian military took over Berlin, and Hitler committed suicide. Russia’s Red Army raised the Soviet Union flag over Reichstag in Berlin. Russia destroyed 75-80% of the Nazi military during WW2. However, during the Cold War, the U.S. rewrote history and claimed all the kudos for defeating Nazi Germany!

By some estimates, the Battle of Berlin was the largest battle in human history! 2.5 million Soviet soldiers fought one million Germans. As for the Americans, they were 100km away, letting the Russians do the tough part.

The narrative about America saving the world from Nazis or fascism is a testament to the extraordinary power of propaganda and brainwashing. Hitler was just a tool to defeat communist USSR, which itself was a creation of globalist bankers to conquer Russia! All through the 1920s, Western banks and corporations poured enormous money into Germany, which became an extremely profitable Wall Street colony. In 1933, UK and France made a pact with Hitler right after he came to power. Five years later was the famous Munich agreement

[reddest-flower]

In 1917, the Soviets revealed the secret treaties of the imperialist powers. When he released these documents, Leon Trotsky – the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs – noted, ‘Secret diplomacy is a necessary weapon in the hands of the propertied minority which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to make the latter serve its interests. Imperialism, with its worldwide plans of annexation, its rapacious alliances and machinations, has developed the system of secret diplomacy to the highest degree’. The Soviet record against colonialism was clear, even as the Comintern struggled to produce a firm line in this or that country. There was no instance where the Soviets considered colonial rule to be worthwhile. The same with fascism, which the Soviets saw as anathema to humankind. Soviet aid to Republican Spain was one test and the other was the immense sacrifice of the USSR in the fight against fascism in World War II.

In 1931, the Spanish Left won the elections and inaugurated the Second Spanish Republic. An even more radical Popular Front government came to power in 1936. Only two countries, Mexico and the USSR – the two peasant republics that had been formed by revolutions – backed the Spanish Republic. Progressive policies to undercut landlords, the aristocrats and the capitalists set the Republic against the ruling bloc. That bloc would rapidly find solace in the fascist movement as well as in the army of General Francisco Franco that left Spanish colonized Morocco for the mainland. From North Africa, the fascists came into the Iberian Peninsula with the intent of overthrowing the Republic by force. A war ensued, which was – with the fascist Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 – an early frontline of the fascist assault. The Soviets backed the Republic, as did Communist parties from around the world. Communists came to the aid of the Republic from the United States to the Philippines, from India to Ireland. The International Brigades, supported by the USSR, provided a bulwark against the onrush of the fascist armies, which were backed not only by the fascist powers (Italy and Germany) but also by the imperialist bloc (Britain and France). Fissures between the anarchists and the communists fractured the unities necessary in the fight against fascism, surely, but there it is undeniable that without logistical help – Operation X – from the Soviets the Republic would have been crushed immediately and not lasted until 1939.

When the Republic fell in March 1939, the imperialist and fascist blocs seemed fused. When Franco marched into Madrid, the British Ambassador went to greet him. When Nehru, who had been to the Republican front-lines and was fully behind the Republic, heard of this, he shuddered. This imperialist and fascist alliance was against humanity. Franco would remain in power until his death in 1975. He remained heralded by the ‘democratic’ countries of Europe.

The USSR, through the summer of 1939, faced the imminent threat of invasion by the fascist and imperialist powers. Such an invasion had taken place right after 1917. In the war in Spain, it became clear that Soviet armaments that went there through Operation X were not of the same quality as those produced by the Germans and the Italians. The Soviets sent 772 airmen in heavy Tupolev SB bombers, which turned out to be far slower and more vulnerable than the German Messerschmitt Bf 109. The Soviet army staff feared that an invasion by the Nazis and the imperialist bloc, after the fall of Spain, would be catastrophic for the USSR. The Nazis had already seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938 and had threatened Lithuania with conquest in March 1939. The Italians had seized Albania in April 1939 and the two fascist powers – Italy and Germany – signed a decisive Pact of Steel in May 1939. Britain’s appeasement of the fascist bloc at the Munich meeting in 1938 suggested collusion between the imperialist and the fascist bloc. This was the context of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, where the Soviets hoped to get some time to build up their capacity before an inevitable Nazi attack. Surely there should have been no compromise with fascism. But this was in the realm of realpolitik – a way to salvage time before the war that was to come. Indeed, in September 1939, the USSR opened nine factories to build aircraft and seven factories to build aircraft engines. The Red Army grew from 1 million (Spring of 1938) to 5 million (June 1941).

But Stalin had other ideas as well. On March 10, 1939, when the Spanish Republic was ready to fall, he said that the USSR should allow the ‘warmongers to sink deeply into the mire of warfare, to quietly urge them on’. If Germany and Britain went to war, then it would ‘weaken and exhaust’ both allowing the USSR ‘with fresh forces’ to enter the fray eventually ‘in the interest of peace to dictate terms to the weakened belligerents’. This would not happen. France was easily defeated by the Nazis and Britain could not find the way to bring troops to the European mainland. The war came to the USSR without the imperialists being weakened. The Nazis attacked the USSR as expected. The Soviets fought valiantly against the Nazis, losing over 26 million Soviet citizens in the long war that eventually destroyed the Nazi war machine.

It was the Soviet Union that saved the world from Nazism. It was Soviet armies that liberated most of the Nazi concentration camps, and it was the Soviet armies that entered Berlin and ended the war. General Dwight Eisenhower, the leading American soldier in the European sector, recalled his journey into the Eastern front after the end of the war, ‘When we flew into Russia in 1945, I did not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the area around Moscow. Through this overrun region, Marshal Zhukov told me, so many numbers of women, children and old men and been killed that the Russian Government would never be able to estimate the total.’

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad, 2019

[shosty-we-understand]

Pictured above is Dmitri Shostakovich with his best friend, Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky. The two of them met invariably in the years preceding, but struck up a friendship after hitting it off at a party of a mutual friend in 1927. The extroverted Sollertinsky paired well with the rather inward-facing Shostakovich. In particular, Shostakovich was taken by his witty, merry, and "entirely down-to-earth" personality. Sollertinsky was himself quite the scholar: he studied ballet, music, linguistics (he also spoke 26 languages), and philosophy, to name a few.

Sollertinsky, as well, was fiercely loyal to Shostakovich, as proven during the fallout in the wake of Muddle Instead of Music (an article published in January 1936 which dragged Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk through the mud, resulting in much professional and personal turmoil for the composer). While many colleagues and indeed even friends were quick to jump on the Shostakovich-slandering bandwagon, Sollertinsky refused to do so, despite the harm it could have, and indeed did, cause his own career. Sollertinsky admired his friend so much that he broke a familial tradition of naming their firstborn sons "Ivan", and instead named his firstborn son "Dmitri".

The Second World War got in the way of their friendship, however. In June 1941, Nazi Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact and invaded the otherwise neutral Soviet Union. The Wehrmacht set their sights on Leningrad very early on, and by August, had nearly fully encircled the city. Sollertinsky was evacuated with the staff of the Leningrad Philharmonia on August 22nd, and Shostakovich was at the train station to see him off. Sollertinsky was evacuated to Novosibirsk, while Shostakovich was evacuated to Kuibyshev later that year. The two kept up their communications via letter (as they had over the past seventeen years), and in 1944 were giddy at the possibility of both living in the same city again (Shostakovich had, at that point, been moved by the government from Kuibyshev to Moscow). However their excitement was short-lived, as soon after returning to Novosibirsk after visiting Moscow, Sollertinsky died of heart complications on February 11th, 1944.

His death left Shostakovich heartbroken, and one that he never truly got over. He would still talk fondly about his friend Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky to his friends, family, and colleagues well into the 1970s.

Photo courtesy of the DSCH Shostakovich Journal.

[ketrindoll]

If Tucker Carlson was an actual journalist and had balls (rather than being a slightly confused listener to putin's rants), he would've asked the following questions:

1. So you think that Molotov-Ribbentrop pact upon which Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to split up Eastern Europe and together invade Poland had nothing to do with the start of the WW2?

2. The United States once belonged to Britain, but the United Kingdom makes no claims to own it or invade it on the pretense of the many problems that the US face, so why does russia think it is entitled to the Baltic States, Poland, Ukraine, and others? Those countries showed clearly that they want nothing to do with russia and just want to be left alone, so why is russia willing to murder their civilians over, objectively false, historic pretenses?

3. What are your personal goals for Ukraine and do their match your former Prime Minister's, former President's, and current security advisor's thoughts about, quote, "erradicating all Ukrainians"?

But Tucker has no regional or historic knowledge, nor a spine to have asked these things.

And putin is a weak old man whose frail ego would've never picked a person to talk to who could've asked those questions.

So, what we ended up with was a delusional story time of an insecure dictator and his dumb entertainer.

[mariacallous]

The year was 1998. Walking down Pushkin Boulevard in my native Donetsk, I listened to English lessons on my Walkman and dreamed of America—a country I would soon call home.

At age 20, I couldn't form a sentence in the language of the USSR's arch-enemy; my teachers, who didn't speak English themselves, made sure of that.

Born and raised in Ukraine, I had just graduated from Donetsk State Tech University, but I couldn't speak Ukrainian either.

Russian was my native language; though it wasn't me who chose it, Russian colonialism did just as it chose to plaster the names of Russian chauvinists, like Pushkin, all over my city.

I was gaslit by the evil empire, and so were you. Let me correct this: So are you.

In the fall of 1982, I remember the nannies at my kindergarten weeping over the death of "our dear leader," Leonid Brezhnev. Perhaps I cried, too. The earliest childhood memories are notoriously faulty.

But in 2024, I hold no illusions about Russia: What it has done, what it seeks to do, and what will happen if the Free World fails to stop it.

Rewriting History: A Soviet Mirage

It took me a lifetime to un-dim the metaphorical lights—to escape the unreality Moscow constructed for the peoples and lands it colonized.

It all started with a perverted version of history that provided all the answers but left no room for questions.

For example, when did World War II start? Sorry, my mistake—the "Great Patriotic War," as it's called in Russia. Everybody knows it began in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the USSR.

Except it didn't. Adolf Hitler's betrayal of Joseph Stalin didn't start the war—their secret pact to invade Poland did.

What the world remembers, and what Russia tries desperately to forget, is that Europe's worst calamity began with the unholy alliance of two evil regimes hellbent on colonization.

Growing up in the USSR, doubt and skepticism, at the heart of the Western intellectual tradition, were out of reach.

It took me decades to understand that the Soviet Union was never truly a country, but rather an oppressive Russia Empire by another name.

When the "brotherhood" of 15 nations is praised and celebrated all around you, it is almost unimaginable that one of those "brothers" was prepared to kill, rape, and torture in a zealous pursuit of its imperialist ambitions, which, in Russia's case, always took categorical precedence over human life.

The Victory That Wasn't

When the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War order crumbled before our eyes, many in the West mistook it for a victory. But who exactly did we defeat?

During the 70 years of the USSR's existence, the evil of communist ideology was merely layered atop the evil of a Frankenstein state, one that desperately wanted the world to see it as a nation.

By 1991, Communism was gone, the USSR fell apart, but the revanchism and a deep-seated fear in Moscow—that the Russian Federation would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions—remained.

Empires thrive on perpetual expansion, as vividly demonstrated by Russia's invasion of Ichkeria, Georgia, and now Ukraine.

Caught in a relentless cycle of conquest and domination, Moscow's legitimacy and stability hinge on the constant acquisition of new territories, the appropriation of other nations' histories, and the subjugation of their peoples.

Suppressed History Is a Harbinger of More Violence

In seventh grade, we studied the "Great Famine" of 1932-1933 and learned about the "kulaks" hiding grain and how the righteous Red Army was fighting the imperialists who wanted the Soviet project to fail.

But did I know what role Stalin's monstrous and deliberate policy to starve millions of Ukrainians by engineering Holodomor had to do with my own life story?

Why did everyone around me speak Russian in Ukraine at the tail-end of the twentieth century? How did my Armenian father, born and raised in Georgia, end up coming to Donbas—the Soviet Union's promised land of his youth?

Colonialism is the answer. Moscow knew that to bury the Ukrainian dream—escaping the empire's yoke—required repopulating the land with outsiders to prevent even a possibility of a grassroots national movement rekindling.

Finding myself both complicit in Russia's imperial project and its victim was as confusing as it was unsettling.

Raphael Lemkin, the man who introduced the concept of genocide to the world, recognized Moscow's Holodomor as a systematic effort to destroy the Ukrainian nation, culture, and people through starvation and repression.

Yet, as I grew up, his name and his views existed in a separate realm of knowledge and awareness from the one I inhabited. The two were meant never to cross.

Had I not escaped the morass of endless lies sustaining the evil empire, I would've never understood that we are witnessing another genocide attempt and that history is indeed repeating itself.

A Breath of Fresh Air

The year was 1998. Walking down 900 East Street in Salt Lake City, Utah, as a fresh-off-the-boat American, I had much to look forward to and little to reflect on.

Between naïveté and arrogance, I managed to strike both with the thought that my individual journey was forerunning the path Ukraine was to inevitably take: From the dark past of oppression and suffering all the way to freedom and prosperity.

I didn't think much about Russia at the time. Surely, it must have wanted the same thing for itself, but it was for the Russian people to decide their future.

When I swore allegiance to the U.S. flag in 2005 and began my career in international relations, the rose-colored glasses started to come off. The straitjacket of lies that had enveloped my mind since childhood showed signs of wear and tear as it came into contact with history books that weren't Russian propaganda.

Not only did I start to understand the past, but Moscow was also unmasking itself fast in real time—murdering thousands of Chechens for defying their colonizers, meddling in the affairs of Ukraine and other neighboring states, and reverting to ruthless authoritarianism after a brief flirtation with democracy in the nineties.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians were rejecting a rigged election and uniting in what became known as the Orange Revolution, demanding accountability from their government.

It was evident that Russia and Ukraine were on different paths, but I was unprepared even to imagine the magnitude of this difference.

From Public Service to Global Diplomacy

After five years of U.S. government service, working on development projects from agriculture in Moldova to renewable energy in Mongolia, I applied for a graduate degree in Public Administration at Harvard.

For a kid from Donetsk, a son of a coal miner, getting an admission letter felt like something out of a fairytale.

Arriving in Cambridge, MA, I delved into the mechanics of democracy and governance; conversations with professors and peers sharpened my vision. I saw more clearly than ever how Moscow had twisted its colonial history and appropriated or perverted histories of the lands it controlled.

My education was no longer a means to an examined life; it was to become a weapon against the empire of lies that had once claimed my allegiance.

My next stop was the World Economic Forum in Geneva, where I covered regional affairs for a portfolio of countries including Russia and Ukraine. Moderating panel discussions with ministers, activists, and opinion leaders often revealed deep historical tensions.

Ukraine faced significant challenges on its path toward Europe, with freedom, prosperity, and nationhood at stake.

What remained obscured to me at the time, however, was the extent to which Russia would resist and sabotage Ukraine's progress at every turn.

The heir to the bloodthirsty tsars and commissars, the Russian Federation was firmly set on a trajectory toward totalitarianism, oppression, and, ultimately, fascism.

With hindsight, I realize that my gaslit mind mistook a bit of situational awareness for enlightenment. Back then, though, I believed—indeed, I knew—Russia couldn't invade Ukraine.

Now, I can see that for the Moscow-centered empire, colonial conquest was all but inevitable.

The West Deliberately Refuses to Understand What Russia Is

Pick up any map, and you'll easily spot a vast country called Russia. But make no mistake—this is no nation; it has no national interests, only imperial ambitions.

Bizarrely, we justify Moscow's criminal actions eagerly at our own peril, despite the threat it poses not just to Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland, etc. but to the entire world and, paradoxically, to the population of Russia too.

Don't take my word for it, ask the people of Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Dagestan or any other Eurasian folk Moscow had colonized. The veritable prison of nations spent decades, if not centuries, attempting to erase their identities, languages, and cultures.

Our stubborn refusal to face the facts is confounding.

What is holding us back from processing the lessons of Russia's bloodstained history, from believing Russia when it tells us it plans to commit what I see as genocide? Why can't we act decisively on this knowledge?

Given an opportunity to restore deterrents, rebuild our credibility, and reassert our commitment to the values we profess, we flounder time and again.

To help Ukraine defeat the aggressor is not charity, it's in our strategic interest. Any other outcome creates a much more problematic future for each of Ukraine's allies individually, and all of us collectively.

The Peril of Inaction, Cloaked in Excuses and Laced With Cowardice

Gaining clarity of vision and decolonizing my mind has been a decades-long process, still ongoing.

I finally learned Ukrainian, and I no longer speak Russian. After all, Moscow used the pretext of "protecting" Russian speakers in Donbas to justify its invasion.

As an unhumorous joke goes, no matter where you are or who you are, if you continue to speak Russian, the motherland will come to "save" you one day.

Reflecting on my journey, I see much of it mirrored in the painstakingly slow and reluctant awakening of the Free World to the realities of Ruscism (Russian Fascism).

But we can't afford decades of incremental enlightenment; we must now recognize that the policy of "with Ukraine as long as it takes" has failed. From the start, it was grounded in our misunderstanding of Moscow.

History makes it clear that Russia responds to indecisiveness and weakness by raising the stakes, but when faced with strength and determination, it retreats.

The humiliating defeat of the Tsarist Russia by Japan in 1905 is one such example. More recently, In 1989, a nuclear-armed superpower—one of only two in the world—was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan after another devastating loss.

Its equally violent successor, the Russian Federation, has claimed victory in every conflict it initiated since, with the consequences all too obvious.

We, in the Free World, can no longer afford to be willfully gaslit by Moscow's lies. The stakes are too high, not just for Ukraine but for every democratic nation.

Our moral and historical obligation extends beyond thoughts and prayers; it demands decisive action. We owe this to the generations before us, and even more to those who will follow.

The time has come to end incrementalism and commit fully to Ukraine's victory, securing not a temporary ceasefire–certain to boomerang back as a yet more dangerous war–but a lasting peace for Europe and the world.