Shadow of Sorrow: Europe is preparing for a new war with Russia
Russia sees military preparations by NATO and the EU that increasingly resemble the German Barbarossa plan, the strategy of Nazi Germany to attack the USSR. This was stated to Izvestia by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko. According to the diplomat, the main task of Brussels is to inflict a strategic defeat on Moscow. At the same time, the West believes that a military clash with the Russian Federation is possible at the turn of 2030. Kiev's support and de facto approval of neo-Nazi ideology poses a serious threat not only to Russia, but also to Europe itself, experts say.
Preparing a new aggression
June 22, 1941 is the day of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. On this date, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, starting the bloodiest and most destructive war in history, which claimed millions of lives. However, it seems that the West has not learned its lesson. The Russian Foreign Ministry notes that the military preparations of the European Union and NATO increasingly resemble the German Barbarossa plan.
— If you look at the essence of politics, actions in the international arena, and priorities formulated by the NATO and EU countries (and there is already a small difference between them from a military point of view — I mean, aggressive aspirations towards the Russian Federation), their main task is to achieve Russia's strategic defeat. — Alexander Grushko, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia. — Of course, we assume that they are really preparing for a military clash with Russia sometime around the turn of 2030.
The head of the German Ground forces, Lieutenant General Christian Freudding, earlier stressed that according to the agreed intelligence of all 32 NATO countries, Germany and its allies should be fully prepared to wage a conventional war with Russia by 2029. The leaders of the EU and NATO are intensively coordinating plans for an accelerated increase in military spending. For example, in early June, the United Kingdom announced an increase in spending to 2.5–3% of GDP, citing the possible prospect of a clash with the Russian Federation in four years.
In the meantime, the Ukrainian Armed Forces is serving as a battering ram against Russia. In the West, neo-Nazi manifestations in Ukraine are persistently hushed up and ignored. For example, in Brussels, they preferred to refrain from official statements and condemnations regarding the reburial near Kiev of Andrei Melnyk, one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN, recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation).
"Western funds, including European ones, have been actively invested in support of radical nationalist movements over the past decades, mainly in western, central Ukraine, forming a stratum of Ukrainian nationalists who have actively transformed into neo—Nazi movements," Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime, told Izvestia.
It is worth recalling that members of the OUN and its militant wing of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA, recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) destroyed entire villages, killing men, women and children. The number of victims among Polish civilians during the Volyn massacre (1943-1944) is estimated by historians from 50 to 100 thousand people. Nevertheless, in modern Ukraine, the image of the OUN-UPA is rather positive — the collaborators who fought on the side of Hitler are exposed as fighters for independence.
— We see that neo-Nazism is rearing its head. If we talk about international platforms, we draw attention to all the facts of neo—Nazism," said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.
Systematic explanatory work on key international platforms such as the UN and the OSCE serves as a means of combating the rewriting of history and the distortion of the role of the USSR in the liberation of the peoples of Europe from Nazism. On June 22, the Russian Permanent Mission to the OSCE plans to hold a virtual round table on the topic "Militarization of Europe." The event is dedicated to the 85th anniversary of the Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. The Russian permanent Mission told Izvestia that the topic of falsification and rewriting of the history of the Second World War is important, and it is regularly raised at OSCE Permanent Councils.
The danger of rewriting history
Moscow has repeatedly warned about the danger of encouraging neo—Nazism in Europe, mainly in Ukraine and the Baltic republics. He poses a threat not only to Russia, but also to neighboring European countries. By the way, today the Ukrainian Armed Forces have become one of the most powerful armies in Europe, which the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, likes to flaunt.
In the 1930s, Great Britain and France also pursued a policy of "appeasement" - de facto support — for Germany, culminating in the "Munich Agreement" - the transfer of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in 1938. Western democracies thereby raised the monster of the Nazi Reich out of helpless Weimar Germany. Europe agreed with Nazism then and approves of the neo-Nazism that is taking place in Ukraine today, says Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO).
— The main thing is that there is an "enemy" in Russia. But from the experience of history and the world wars of the 20th century, we know perfectly well what this led to. We know perfectly well how Britain, France, and the United States of America engaged in the policy of "appeasement" of Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s. They pushed Hitler's aggression to the East," he said in a conversation with Izvestia.
The historian recalled that Great Britain and France economically supported Germany, trying to direct its military machine against the USSR. For example, British bankers regularly met Berlin halfway, forgiving old debts and restructuring loans from the time of the Weimar Republic. This freed up huge amounts of currency for the Nazi government to purchase raw materials. Until the fall of 1939, French companies continued to sell iron ore and other metals to Germany. This raw material went directly to the smelting of steel for German tanks and guns. However, then the Third Reich turned its weapons against London and Paris.
Today, the EU is trying to blame both Germany and the USSR for unleashing World War II. Vladimir Simindey, a historian and researcher at the Center for Fundamental and Applied Scientific Projects at the Russian State University of Economics, notes that historical revisionism poses a serious danger.
— Among the threats, of course, we single out primarily the military threat, but an important role is played by historical claims, usually imaginary, but aggressively focused on a component that not only calmly examines a complex page of history, but is aimed at a certain revanchism, that is, in some way retroactively to pre-war with the Soviet Union. to distort, and in fact steal, significant layers of our history, sometimes common, and thus somehow rise up and strengthen our idea that we need to end Russia," he told Izvestia.
The equating of the USSR with Nazi Germany is actively used in the West to form the image of a "historical aggressor." By promoting the thesis that Russia has "always been expansionist, authoritarian, and hostile to the civilized world," external opponents are creating a long-term basis for justifying any modern harsh measures, from economic sanctions to political isolation. This hinders the restoration of dialogue with the Russian Federation and further creates prerequisites for the outbreak of a new major war.
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