With the support of the international community, Ukraine will win and Russia will pay large reparations, the president of the Association of Historians of the Republic of Moldova Anatol Petrencu stated in a public debate staged by IPN. According to the historian, the rhetoric of the Russian propagandists, who say that Russia should control the former Soviet states, is false and is aimed at making the people remain nostalgic for the grandeur of the Soviet Union.
Anatol Petrencu said that Russia arrogates to itself an undeserved right when it speaks about victory over Nazism in World War II. The Soviet’s victory wouldn’t have been possible without the logistic, military and human support of the international community.
“The Soviet Union dismembered due to internal reasons. For the Americans, it was a surprise. Independent states were constituted. The Russians expressed their indignation as if these territories belonged to them. Even if formally they recognized the independence of the states, a class of dissatisfied persons – writers, poets and politicians – appeared and they considered that Russia suffered a defeat following the Cold War. Putin was slowly promoted and this enjoyed success initially. In 2003, they raised the issue of the restoration of the Soviet Union and they started to psychologically pave the way for the “Russian world”,” said the historian, noting that no one doubts the USSR’s contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany but the Russian propaganda emphasis only Russia and ignores the assistance of the U.S., the fact that English, French and Polish people also fought in that war.
Anatol Petrencu made reference to the speech given by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky through videoconferencing at the last G7 Summit. The Ukrainian leader noted that the negotiations with Moscow are for now out of the question.
“No negotiations with Putin from now on. He is considered a war criminal. The reply is that Ukraine will never beat Russia and this is probably so. But when it goes to the group of the seven industrialized states – the U.S., Japan, Germany, France and other powers - things are clear. It will be an alliance against Putin,” stated Anatol Petrencu.
The historian also said that the scenario of World War II repeats in 2022. The whole international community formed an alliance against the aggressor state. Ukraine will definitely with this war with the support of the NATO partners.
“In Russia, those who loudly plead in favor of the war in Ukraine actually do not want to fight. The people should realize that the war is a big trouble for everyone, for those who try to conquer and also for those who defend their homeland. Innocent people, children, older people die. Houses and power plants are being destroyed. The war must be condemned. It cannot come to nostalgia here. The USSR’s victory in World War II was a Pyrrhic victory. The Soviets lost 27 million people. They later imposed Stalinism in the liberated countries and this was nothing but a regime that was as harsh as the Nazi regime,” Anatol Petrencu said, predicting that Russia will lose the war and will pay reparations.
The public debate entitled “USSR’s participation in World War II: about real victories and defeats, about what propaganda does not say, about what myths and nostalgia reveal” was the seventh installment of IPN’s project “100 years of USSR and 31 years without USSR: Nostalgia for Chimeras”, which is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
