OPINION: On the 80-Year Anniversary of Victory in Europe: An Open Letter

Dear Friends,

These days, we all commemorate the 80th anniversary of the victorious European campaign in World War II. Russia seeks to privatize this victory and to be glorified as the vanquisher of German Nazism.

Putin is heavily counting on this.

Europe has long been influenced by deceitful Russian propaganda and filled with gratitude toward the so-called Russian liberators.

This is a dangerous situation where myths overshadow the truth and could lead to a softer stance on Russian war crimes and aggression against Ukraine.

It is crucial to reconsider the narrative surrounding the victory over German Nazism. In reality:

• In 1939, the Second World War was jointly launched by two allies – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They occupied and divided Central Europe between themselves, and then, strengthened by this alliance, Germany easily occupied Western Europe.
• It was not Russia that defeated German Nazism, but all the peoples of the Soviet Union together with the countries of the Anti-Hitler Coalition. A key role was played by the economic and military assistance of the United States.
• Ukraine bore the greatest share of human and material losses, exceeding 40%, with Belarus coming second.
• The Russians were among the largest groups of Nazi collaborators: the Vlasov Army and other similar formations numbered up to 800,000 people.
• Russia used this war to carry out another genocide against Ukrainians. Entire male populations of liberated towns and villages in Ukraine were immediately sent, unarmed, into attacks. German machine gunners reportedly lost their sanity after slaughtering thousands of unarmed Ukrainian civilians.
• Stalinist Soviet fascism defeated Hitler’s German Nazism and went on to occupy Central Europe. The war crimes committed by the Red Army against civilian populations across Europe have never been condemned.
• The criminal Soviet regime was never officially condemned. This led to the global spread of communist tyranny and bloody interventions in Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), and Afghanistan (1979), along with ongoing support for global terrorism and dictatorial regimes by the modern Russian Federation.
• Russia is the successor of the Soviet Union and its regime, employing the same criminal secret services and pursuing an equally aggressive foreign policy.
• The 2008 war and occupation of part of Georgia, as well as the current war in Ukraine, stem from the global community’s long-standing tolerance of Russian crimes.

Unfortunately, the leaders and elites of civilized nations demonstrate a very slow ability to perceive and, even more so, to act on unconventional and inconvenient information.

It took a full year for the theses of the Manifesto of Sustainable Peace: The World After Our Victory, written by leaders of Ukrainian civil society, to transition from being dismissed to being actively discussed. The core message of the Manifesto is this: Ukraine’s current war with Russia will continue until imperial Russia collapses into independent national entities. Until that happens, the threat to Ukraine and to all of Europe will remain.

We urge you to embrace the truthful vision of Russia’s role in the victory over German Nazism and to prevent Russia’s glorification during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II. Our statements resonate with the resolution adopted by the European Parliament by a majority vote on Jan. 23, 2025.

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Hungary is preparing to lift its long-running veto on Ukraine’s EU bid, as new leadership signals openness for Kyiv and Chisinau to launch the first cluster of accession talks at a conference in Luxembourg, June 15. The shift follows recent negotiations on the rights of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine and comes as EU ambassadors rush to finalize a joint position. Budapest says any formal decisions are yet to be made, but the political signal marks a significant step in the bloc’s enlargement debate.

Bohdan Pankevych, and likeminded people from Ukrainian civil society.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.