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What Russia Should Do with Ukraine

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"What Russia should do with Ukraine" (Russian: Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной), also rendered as "What should Russia do with Ukraine?",[1] is an article written by Timofey Sergeytsev and published by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.[2] The article calls for the full destruction of Ukraine as a state and the Ukrainian national identity.[3][4]

It was published on 3 April 2022 in the context of ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022),[2] on the same day as the bodies of dozens of civilians were discovered after the retreat of Russian forces from Ukrainian city of Bucha.[3][5]

The article caused international criticism and outrage. The article is widely condemned as pro-genocide.[3][6][7][8]

Content

The article advocates for "brutal censorship" of the Ukrainian culture, large-scale "re-education" and "de-ukrainization" of Ukrainians on the territories occupied by Russia in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.[4][9][8]

The author insists that Ukraine’s ethnocentrism is an artificial perversion,[10] that Ukraine's existence is "impossible" as a nation-state,[9] and that the word "Ukraine" itself cannot be allowed to exist.[3][4] According to the author, Ukraine should be dismantled and replaced with several states under direct control by Russia.[11] He adds that the "ethnic component of self-identification" of Ukraine would also be rejected after its occupation by Russia.[9]

The author claims that "most likely the majority" of Ukrainian civilians are Nazis[9][12] who "technically" cannot be punished as war criminals, but can be subjected to "denazification".[13] He claims that Ukrainians must "assimilate the experience" of the war "as a historical lesson and atonement for [their] guilt". After the war, forced labor, imprisonment and the death penalty would be used as punishment. After that, the population would be "integrated" into "Russian civilization".[9] The author describes the planned actions as a "de-colonization" of Ukraine.[10][11]

Author

The author of the text, Timofey Sergeytsev (Russian: Тимофей Сергейцев), in 1998–2000 advised Victor Pinchuk projects, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Interpipe Group. In 1998, Sergeytsev was engaged in the Viktor Pinchuk parliamentary election campaign in Ukraine. In 1999, he worked for Leonid Kuchma presidential campaign. In September 2004, he was a consultant to Viktor Yanukovych. In 2010, he worked with Arseniy Yatsenyuk.[14]

In 2012, Sergeitsev co-produced the Russian feature film Match which was criticized for Ukrainophobia. In 2014, it was banned on the territory of Ukraine as a propaganda.[15][16]

According to Der Tagesspiegel, Sergeitsev supports a pro-Putin political party "Civic Platform", financed by one of the oligarchs from Putin's inner circle.[4] According to Euractiv, Sergeitsev is "one of the ideologists of modern Russian fascism".[17]

Follow-ups

A few days after the publication, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, reiterated the main points of the article. According to Medvedev, "a passionate segment of Ukrainian society has been praying to the Third Reich",[18] Ukraine is a Nazi state like the Third Reich that must be "denazified", and the result will be a collapse of Ukraine as a state.[19] Medvedev claims that the collapse is a path towards "open Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok".[19]

Reactions

See also: War crimes in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine § Genocidal intent

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the article is proof of the Russian Federation plans to carry out a genocide of Ukrainian citizens.[20] He noted that in order to denote the genocide of Ukrainians in the article the terms "de-Ukrainisation" and "de-Europeanization" were used. In his opinion, this is one of the evidence for a future tribunal against Russian war crimes in Ukraine.[21][22]

According to a representative of Ukraine at Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations Mykhailo Podoliak, the article is an official call for mass murders of Ukrainians because of their ethnicity, and will be considered as such by international criminal courts.[23]

The Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Oleksandr Tkachenko commented:[21]

Cynically, the author speaks about Ukrainian Nazism. When we see exactly the opposite: Russia is mass murdering Ukrainians because of their national identity. What should I call it? I will answer straight away: it is genocide of the Ukrainian people by Russia.

The head of the Latvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Edgars Rinkēvičs called the article "ordinary fascism".[24]

A former Canadian ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk said that "It's essentially a rhetorical 'licence to kill'" Ukrainians.[3]

Analysis

According to Mika Aaltola, director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, the article showed Russian war propaganda "developing in a worrying direction".[25]

According to Meduza, the article is "essentially a blueprint for the genocide" of Ukrainians.[10]

According to Oxford expert on Russian affairs Samuel Ramani, the article "represents mainstream Kremlin thinking".[18]

The American historian Timothy Snyder wrote that the text "advocates the elimination of the Ukrainian people as such".[26] He later noted that it uses a special definition of the word "Nazi": "a Nazi is a Ukrainian who refuses to admit being a Russian". In his opinion, the article reveals genocidal intent of the Russians.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ Ball, Tom. "Russia's vision for renaming Ukraine includes executing rebels". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Ukraine 'to be renamed' after war". The Australian. 5 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e Brown, Chris (5 April 2022). "A Kremlin paper justifies erasing the Ukrainian identity, as Russia is accused of war crimes". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d Reuter, Benjamin; Stolz, Christopher (4 April 2022). "Russische Nachrichtenagentur ruft zur Vernichtung der Ukraine auf" – via Tagesspiegel.
  5. ^ a b Snyder, Timothy (8 April 2022). "Russia's genocide handbook - The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts". Thinking about... - Opening the future by understanding the past. Substack. Archived from the original on 11 April 2022. Retrieved 1 April 2022. Снайдер, Тімоті (10 April 2022). "Російський посібник з геноциду" (in Ukrainian). NV.ua. Archived from the original on 10 April 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  6. ^ Ball, Tom. "Russia's vision for renaming Ukraine includes executing rebels". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  7. ^ "Russian media spins alleged atrocities—"Shot by Nazis"". Newsweek. 4 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  8. ^ a b Samantha, Lock; Clayton, Abené; Oladipo, Gloria; Chao-Fong, Léonie; Belam, Martin (5 April 2022). "Zelenskiy says more than 300 people killed and tortured in Bucha – as it happened". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  9. ^ a b c d e "Russian state media: 'Ukronazism' greater threat to world than Hitler". The Jerusalem Post | JPost.com.
  10. ^ a b c "Russia's war against Ukraine Daily updates as Moscow's full-scale invasion enters its second month". Meduza.
  11. ^ a b NACHRICHTEN, n-tv. "Russische Nachrichtenagentur ruft zum Völkermord auf". n-tv.de.
  12. ^ "Russian media spins alleged atrocities—"Shot by Nazis"". Newsweek. 4 April 2022.
  13. ^ "Killings in Ukraine amount to genocide, Holocaust expert says". The Independent. 4 April 2022.
  14. ^ "Державне інформагентство РФ опублікувало текст з обґрунтуванням геноциду в Україні". LB.ua. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  15. ^ Body, Some (4 April 2022). "Колумнист РИА "Новости" призвал к "деукраинизации" и репрессиям против украинцев. В соцсетях статью посчитали нацистской — Интернет на TJ". TJ. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  16. ^ "Заборонити слово Україна та репресувати ціле покоління – розкрито плани кремлівських нацистів, які здивували б Гітлера". www.segodnya.ua (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  17. ^ Rukomeda, Roman (6 April 2022). "'The whole world can observe the clash of civilization and anticivilization'". www.euractiv.com.
  18. ^ a b "'Genocide masterplan': Experts alarmed after Kremlin intellectual calls for 'cleansed' Ukraine". news.yahoo.com.
  19. ^ a b "Wie soll der Krieg in der Ukraine enden? Dieser russische Text lässt Böses erahnen". watson.ch.
  20. ^ "Article 'What Russia should do with Ukraine' is evidence for future tribunal - Zelensky". Interfax-Ukraine. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  21. ^ a b Котубей, Олеся (4 April 2022). "На державному російському сайті вийшла стаття "Що Росія має зробити з Україною"". Суспільне | Новини (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  22. ^ "Zelenskyy on RIA Novosti article: One piece of evidence for a future tribunal". Ukrayinska Pravda. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  23. ^ "В ОП напомнили России о международных судах из-за статьи о "перевоспитании" украинцев". Украинская правда.
  24. ^ Цензор.НЕТ. "Звичайний фашизм, - глава МЗС Латвії щодо статті "Що Росія має зробити з Україною"". Цензор.НЕТ (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  25. ^ "Venäjän propaganda viestii kansanmurhaa - "huolestuttavaa, kammottavaa"". Verkkouutiset (in Finnish). 4 April 2022. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  26. ^ Snyder, Timothy [@TimothyDSnyder] (5 April 2022). "An article in the official state Russian news agency RIA Novosti..." (Tweet) – via Twitter. An article in the official state Russian news agency RIA Novosti advocates the elimination of the Ukrainian people as such. The text is so despicable that I'm not going to link to it. Will write about it later.
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