Comment by Georgi Lozanov:
Against the backdrop of the negotiations for lasting peace in Ukraine, which Putin masterfully sabotaged, his proposal for a three-day truce (from May 8 to 10) in anticipation of reciprocity from Zelensky, was nothing but great political and human impudence. It is clear to everyone that his only goal is to ensure peace for the parade on the occasion of the so-called Victory Day in the so-called Great Patriotic War, after Putin realized that with Trump's return to the White House, the more unforgiving his demands are, the more likely they are to be fulfilled.
At least three historical falsifications
However, the greatest impudence is Victory Day itself (May 9), declared as such by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1945, without the consent of the allies in World War II, who had different ideas about its end. But communist Russia was in a hurry to appropriate the victory, and the war in general, by renaming it from a global to a national war, thereby creating at least three historical falsifications.
The first is the tendentious underestimation of the allies, whom Soviet propaganda would soon turn into enemy number one and enter the Cold War with them. And students in the Soviet bloc would learn from a very early age that it was the Russians who saved Europe from the fascists and would save it in the future from the capitalists, who were their former allies themselves. Never mind that without the active role of Britain and the USA and the opening of a second front, the outcome of the war would have been very different.
The second falsification, somewhat in contradiction to the first, is standing next to these same allies, thanks to whom the war unfolded as a clash between democracy and dictatorship, so that it would turn out that the USSR also belonged to democracy. And to conceal the fact that on the Eastern Front the battle is between two equally sinister dictatorships, as the communist one - after the coalition victory over the fascist one, gets the right to occupy large parts of Europe. Only Churchill seems to realize what awaits the occupied countries and plans for the allies at the end of the war to defeat the army of the victorious dictatorship in turn. However, his plan does not find support in the already tired military, as is evident from its code name - operation – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –;;.
For the symmetry between the two dictatorships, we have our own eloquent example with the book – The reason is that it is widely read as a description of communism, although it only tells about fascism. And "the reader discovered for himself the terrifying truth that not only is there no essential difference between the Nazi and communist political systems, but to the extent that there is one, it is not in favor of communism", writes Dr. Zhelev. Even the terrifying numbers coincide - about 20 million each passed through the Nazi and Stalinist camps. Despite this, however: "The world hated Hitler and sympathized with Stalin. Hitler had taken over half of Europe and the whole rest of the world had declared war on him. Stalin had taken over half of Europe and the whole world had welcomed him", as the Russian émigré writer Viktor Suvorov sadly noted and asked himself "Why did World War II end for the Soviet Union with the so-called "great victory", which turned out to be worse than any defeat?". Probably because the West - faced with the threat of democracy in Europe being destroyed by Hitler - is undertaking something like our familiar "assembly", but geopolitically, in which, in order to stop one dictatorship, it allies with another in the hope of later dealing with it too. And after 45 years, it finally succeeds, or at least that's what it seemed to us at the time…
The third falsification is in the dating of the Great Patriotic War - from 1941 to 1945, in order to eliminate the first two years of the beginning of World War II along with the question of what the USSR did during them. And let's not forget that they signed an agreement with Hitlerite Germany, known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and jointly attacked Poland - on September 1, 1939, Germany, and 16 days later, the USSR. And they even issued a joint declaration, which states that they "are settling the borders between the two countries as a result of the collapse of the Polish state and thus creating a secure basis for lasting peace in Eastern Europe". You will be shuddering from the Orwellian demagogy - "War is peace..." - and from how diligently Putin's regime has assimilated it, such as that not he, but Bulgaria and Romania are to blame for the war in Ukraine. But if, according to a convincing version, Hitler and Stalin once quarreled over Bulgaria, the world should be especially grateful to us, because we can imagine what it would have been like if the two dictators in coalition had continued to seize territories and massacre their populations.
Russia's only trump card
Historically, the USSR's accidental, ultimately accidental switch to the side of anti-fascism is the only trump card (in Trump's gambling terminology) of Russia, which it continues to hold 80 years after the victory over fascism. And Putin ruthlessly uses it as an alibi for his policy of conquest. And the first work of his propaganda – in the style of Stalin, for whom every opponent is a fascist or a Nazi, was to declare the Ukrainians as Nazis with the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the EU as the Fourth Reich.
In such an inflated propaganda bubble, it becomes vital for Putin to have world leaders come to the parade in Moscow on May 9, who with their presence "by default" would legitimize his regime as just and democratic. However, the grotesque is complete when, in order to legitimize Putin's democracy, dictators line up next to each other on the tribune and the parade looks like something out of a Charlie Chaplin movie.