By Patrick Armstrong, Website, 5/8/25

A couple of days ago I read a rather distressing discussion on X about US lend-lease to the USSR. Distressing because of the combination of impenetrable ignorance and unshakeable conviction. One side yelling that US lend-lease made no difference at all and you’re an idiot; the other yelling that it made all the difference and you’re the idiot. Like a bunch of drunks arguing about something in the Star Wars movies.

More ignorance on the Western side than on the Russian? Not sure actually in what I read although we have to agree that Trump just set the American bar pretty high. And it soon degenerated into who Hitler’s best friends were. Each was certain that he had all the facts and the other side had none.

Would the Soviets have beaten the nazis without US (and British and Canadian) aid? I’m inclined to think so although certainly at a greater cost and more years of struggle. Did the aid make a difference? Of course it did; in food and trucks especially. But you can make the argument that the Germans had lost their best chance after the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and after Stalingrad there was no chance. David Glantz has put it quite neatly I think: the Germans won the summers of 1941 and 1942 but the Soviets won the other summers and all the winters. Lend-lease took some time to build up and didn’t really peak until 1943 so less of an effect in those vital years of 1941 and 1942. (Years ago I was surprised to see a Canadian-made Valentine tank in a Berlin battle film. Apparently the Soviets liked the tank because it was well-armoured and easy to maintain, but I can’t think the 2-pounder gun was much use in 1945.)

Who won the war? The Allies did. But you can’t forget the 80/20 division. Who suffered the most? The Soviets undeniably. Where were the most important Axis defeats? On the Eastern Front, no question. (Except for the Battle of Britain.)

Who started the war? Well we all had a responsibility: Stalin spent six years trying to organise an anti-Hitler coalition but failed for various reasons and then became the last man to do a deal with Hitler. (It was infuriating in those X rants and counter-rants when some ignoramus threw out the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement as if that were the final word. The certainty of facts without context.)

Probably the most noticeable thing on the Western side was the incomprehension of the gigantic scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front. I remember remarking when I first read Liddell-Hart’s history 40-50 years ago on the disproportionate space given to the North African fighting versus the Eastern Front. I have some sympathy for him because the Soviets weren’t telling us much then but still. And that disproportion persists in the West although there’s no excuse any more. And so does the view that the Soviets had no skill: on the contrary, once they got going, they beat the Germans strategically and operationally and surprised them almost every time. These people should be required to read at least one book by Glantz before they’re allowed to open their mouths again. And listen to the lecture by Jonathan House about the three German alibis.

And from the Russian side the tiresome conviction that D-Day only happened because the Western allies saw that the Soviets were winning and felt they’d better jump in. No, D-Day happened as soon as it could. I don’t think the Soviets had any idea of how difficult a seaborne invasion is against a defended coast. And how would they? Have the Russians or Soviets ever done one?

The Europeans secretly supported Hitler. Yes, many did, but they lost that argument in 1939.

Or Allen Dulles fooling around in Switzerland. He did but it was a personal initiative by a guy whose whole career was based on the assumption that the rules were whatever he said they were. Unconditional surrender was primarily Roosevelt’s initiative and he and Churchill agreed to it in January 1943. That, not Dulles’ fantasies, was and remained official policy.

Operation Unthinkable. Well, maybe the name gives you a clue.

But over the years much has been forgotten. The clearest example is that opinion poll record that shows the French in 1945 knowing the Soviets had played the biggest part (80/20) but these days believing the USA had.

As for Trump’s recent assertion, I have a horrible feeling that most of my neighbours, few of whom have ever heard of Canada’s Hundred Days, would agree with him.

********************************

I was there for the 50^th. A different time. The Western Allies showed up to do honour. In those far-off days we knew the difference between Stepan Bandera and Lyudmilla Pavlichenko and which side which was on. Today the Canadian Parliament and British VE-Day ceremony organisers have forgotten.

Which, of course, feeds into the conviction many Russians already have that Marshal Zhukov got it right when he (reportedly) said “We have saved Europe from fascism and they will never forgive us for it”. (Did he actually say that? Certainly lots of Russians seem to think he did.)

***

World War II, the Ukraine Conflict, and the Bitter Truths of History

By Prof. Geoffrey Roberts, Brave New Europe, 5/8/25

A group called ‘Historians for Ukraine’ has published an ‘open letter to the people of the USA’ that denounces Russian disinformation about the Second World War. [https://historiansforukraine.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/20250406-EN-LETTER-historians-for-ukraine.pdf]

While such missives have become increasingly common since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, among this one’s signatories are reputable historians, whose names lend credibility to the letter’s strident denunciation of Putin’s ‘weaponization’ of World War Two history.

The letter is timed and designed to put a negative spin on Russia’s celebration and commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

Eighty percent of all World War II combat took place on the Soviet-German front. During four years of war the Red Army destroyed 600 enemy divisions and inflicted ten million casualties on the Wehrmacht (75% of its total wartime losses), including three million dead. Red Army casualties totalled sixteen million, including eight million dead (three million in German POW camps). Adding to the attrition was the death of sixteen million Soviet civilians. Among them were a million Soviet Jews, executed by the Germans in 1941–2 at the beginning of the Holocaust.

The Soviet Union’s material losses were equally staggering: six million houses, 98,000 farms, 32,000 factories, 82,000 schools, 43,000 libraries, 6,000 hospitals, and thousands of miles of roads and railways. In total, the Soviet Union lost 25% of its national wealth and 14% of its population as a direct result of the war.

‘Historians for Ukraine’ claim support from the LRE Foundation, a worthy, Europe-based organisation, whose laudable mission is to promote “a multi-perspective understanding of the history of World War II. As each country had a different wartime experience, it is our goal to present each perspective in relation to each other.”1

‘Historians for Ukraine’, however, are interested in only one perspective – the tired, anti-Soviet story that has long been promoted by western cold warriors, a narrative that begins with the 1939 Stalin-Hitler pact and ends with communist subjugation of Eastern Europe in 1945.

The problem with this one-sided narrative is that the Soviets were far from being the first appeasers of Hitler and the Nazis. It was the British and French governments who pursed a deal with Hitler in the 1930s, while the Soviet Union campaigned for the collective containment of German expansionism. It was the Soviets who spent years trying to strengthen the League of Nations as a collective security organisation. It was the Soviet state that stood by Republican Spain during its fascist-initiated civil war. When London and Paris pressurised Czechoslovakia to concede the Sudetenland to Hitler, Moscow was ready to fulfil its mutual security commitments to Prague, provided the French did likewise. It was Poland that snatched a slice of Czech territory after Munich, not the Soviet Union.

The United States’ role in relation to these events was one of a bystander that passed a series of isolationist Neutrality Acts.

Before concluding his pact with Hitler, Stalin spent months negotiating a triple alliance with Britain and France that would have guaranteed the security of all European states under Nazi threat, including Poland. But the anti-communist Poles did not want or think they needed an alliance with the USSR when they had the pre-existing backing of Britain and France.

An Anglo-Soviet-French triple alliance might well have deterred Hitler from attacking Poland in September 1939, but London and Paris dragged their feet during the negotiations and as war approached Stalin began to doubt the utility of a Soviet-Western alliance. Fearful the Soviet Union would be left to fight Germany alone while Britain and France stood on the sidelines, Stalin decided to do a deal with Hitler that kept the USSR out of the coming war and provided some guarantees for Soviet security.

None of this complicated prewar history is alluded to in the ‘open letter’, let alone dealt with. Instead, its authors depict the Soviet Union as simply Hitler’s ally and as a co-belligerent in the invasion of Poland.

Actually, the short-lived Soviet-German alliance of 1939-1940 did not develop until after the partition of Poland. It was Germany’s crushing of Poland’s military power – and the failure of Britain and France to effectively aid their Polish ally – that prompted Stalin to occupy the territory allocated to the USSR under the terms of a secret Soviet-German spheres influence agreement – an action that Winston Churchill wholeheartedly supported: “We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”

The Polish territories occupied by the Soviets lay east of the so-called ‘Curzon Line’ -the ethnographical frontier between Russia and Poland demarcated at Versailles – mostly populated by Jews, Belorussians and Ukrainians, many of whom welcomed the Red Army as liberators from Warsaw’s rule. Such enthusiasm did not outlast the violent process of sovietisation and communisation through which these territories were incorporated into the USSR as part of a unified Belorussia and a united Ukraine.

Nonetheless, it was Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet pact that prised Western Ukraine from Poland. At the end of the war, Churchill pleaded for the return of Lvov to the Poles, but Stalin refused, saying the Ukrainians would never forgive him. As compensation for the loss of its eastern territories, Poland was given East Prussia and other parts of Germany – a transfer that resulted in the brutal displacement of millions of Germans from their ancestral lands.

Also allocated to the Soviet sphere of influence were Finland and the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. According to the open letter: “shortly after the start of the war, the Soviets also attacked Finland. Then in 1940 they invaded and annexed Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.” But, again, the story is not quite so simple.

Stalin’s preferred option was a diplomatic deal with the Finns, including an exchange of territories, his aim being to enhance Leningrad’s security. Only when those negotiations failed did the Red Army invade Finland in December 1939. Soviet losses were enormous but by March 1940 the Finns had been forced to accept Stalin’s terms. Finland could have sat out the rest of the Second World War as a neutral state but the country’s leaders chose, disastrously, to join Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, besieging Leningrad from the north, and thereby contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the blockaded city.

Stalin’s aims in relation to the Baltic States were initially quite modest – loose spheres of influence arrangements based on mutual assistance pacts and Soviet military bases. “We are not going to seek their sovietisation”, Stalin told his comrades, “the time will come when they will do that themselves!” However, by summer 1940 Stalin feared the Baltics were slipping back into the German orbit. There was also political pressure from local leftists who wanted the Soviets to make the revolution for them – to use the Red Army to overthrow the old regimes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

As in Poland, the sovietisation of the Baltic States and their incorporation into the USSR was extremely violent, including the deportation of 25,000 ‘undesirables’. Such repression could not but feed into the widespread Baltic collusion with the Nazi occupation that followed Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Somewhat grudgingly, the open letter admits the Soviet Union “suffered horrifying losses” during the war, including in Ukraine, and also notes the Red Army’s liberation of Eastern Europe in 1944-1945, but it bemoans the resultant repressive communist regimes. Unmentioned is that many of the countries occupied by the Red Army – Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia – and then taken over by the communists – were ex-Axis states.

Authoritarianism was the hallmark of Eastern European politics long before the communist takeover. The country that came closest to a western-style democracy was Czechoslovakia, where the communists and socialists won a majority of votes in postwar elections. Support for the left was weaker elsewhere but there is no doubting the mass popular basis of East European communism in the early postwar years.

The postwar international context is all important to understanding the transformation of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe into a tightly controlled Stalinist bloc. It was the polarisations and conflicts of the cold war that encouraged the radicalisation of Soviet and communist policy in Eastern Europe, not least in Czechoslovakia, where a communist coup in 1948 overthrew the broad coalition that had hitherto governed the country.

The one country able to find a way through these tensions was Finland – because its postwar leaders wisely refrained from involving western powers in their internal political struggles. Hence Finland remained unoccupied by Stalin and evolved into a semi-detached member of the Soviet bloc that was friendly to Moscow but in control of its domestic sovereignty. Absent the cold war, what came to be called ‘Finlandisation’ might have worked for other Soviet bloc states as well.

Among the Red Army’s most implacable enemies were those Ukrainian nationalists who actively collaborated with the Nazis, participated in the Holocaust, and ethnically exterminated tens of thousands of Poles. Those same nationalists are widely lauded as heroes and patriots in contemporary Ukraine – an inconvenient truth evaded by the authors of the open letter, who claim that “Putin’s assertion that Ukraine today glorifies the Nazis and their collaborators is notonly factually incorrect but insulting to this nation’s own tragic history.”

All politicians distort and manipulate the past for political purposes, and Putin is no exception. But the same is true of polemicizing propagandists.

The Nazi-Soviet pact is a fact but so is Polish collaboration with Hitler in the 1930s. The Soviet Union did cooperate with Nazi Germany but it also played the main role in the defeat of Hitler. Stalin was responsible for vast mass repressions but he was not a racist or genocidal dictator and nor was he a warmonger. The Red Army’s invasion of Eastern Poland was reprehensible but it also unified Belorussia and Ukraine. During the Second World War the Red Army was responsible for many atrocities but it did not commit mass murder and it did, together with its western allies, liberate Europe from the Nazis.

‘Historians for Ukraine’ hope for a suitable diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict but their letter’s shrill attack on the Russian perspective on the Second World War is inimical to the cause of peace.

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 5/4/25

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As VE Day approaches, Western officials, pundits and journalists are widely seeking to exploit the 80th anniversary of Nazism’s defeat for political purposes. European leaders have threatened state attendees of Russia’s grand May 9th victory parade with adverse consequences. Meanwhile, countless sources draw historical comparisons between appeasement of Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s, and the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to strike a deal with Moscow to end the Ukraine proxy conflict.

As The Atlantic put it in March, “Trump Is Offering Putin Another Munich” – a reference to the September 1938 Munich Agreement, under which Western powers, led by Britain, granted a vast portion of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Mainstream narratives of appeasement state that this represented the policy’s apotheosis – its final act, which it was believed would permanently sate Adolf Hitler’s expansionist ambitions, but actually made World War II inevitable. 

Appeasement is universally accepted today in the West as a well-intentioned but ultimately catastrophically failed and misguided attempt to avoid another global conflict with Germany, for peace’s sake. According to this reading, European governments made certain concessions to Hitler, while turning a blind eye to egregious breaches of the post-World War I Versailles Treaty, such as the Luftwaffe’s creation in February 1935, and Nazi Germany’s military occupation of the Rhineland in May the next year.  

In reality though, from Britain’s perspective, the Munich Agreement was intended to be just the start of a wider process that would culminate in “world political partnership” between London and Berlin. Two months prior, the Federation of British Industries (FBI), known today as the Confederation of British Industry, made contact with its Nazi counterpart, Reichsgruppe Industrie (RI). The pair eagerly agreed their respective governments should enter into formal negotiations on Anglo-German economic integration.

Representatives of these organisations met face-to-face in London on November 9th that year. The summit went swimmingly, and a formal conference in Düsseldorf was scheduled for next March. Coincidentally, later that evening in Berlin, Kristallnacht erupted, with Nazi paramilitaries burning and destroying synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany. The most infamous pogrom in history was no deterrent to continued discussions and meetings between FBI and RI representatives. A month later, they inked a formal agreement on the creation of an international Anglo-Nazi coal cartel.

British officials fully endorsed this burgeoning relationship, believing it would provide a crucial foundation for future alliance with Nazi Germany in other fields. Moreover, it was hoped Berlin’s industrial and technological prowess would reinvigorate Britain’s economy at home and throughout the Empire, which was ever-increasingly lagging behind the ascendant US. In February 1939, representatives of British government and industry made a pilgrimage to Berlin to feast with high-ranking Nazi officials, in advance of the next month’s joint conference.

As FBI representatives prepared to depart for Düsseldorf in March, British cabinet chief Walter Runciman – a fervent advocate of appeasement, and chief architect of Czechoslovakia’s carve up – informed them, “gentlemen, the peace of Europe is in your hands.” In a sick twist, they arrived on March 14th, while Czechoslovakian president Emil Hácha was in Berlin meeting with Hitler. Offered the choice of freely allowing Nazi troops entry into his country, or the Luftwaffe reducing Prague to rubble before all-out invasion, he suffered a heart attack.

After revival, Hácha chose the former option. The Düsseldorf conference commenced the next morning, as Nazi tanks stormed unhindered into rump Czechoslovakia. Against this monstrous backdrop, a 12-point declaration was ironed out by the FBI and RI. It envisaged “a world economic partnership between the business communities” of Berlin and London. That August, FBI representatives secretly met with Herman Göring to anoint the agreement. In the meantime, the British government had via back channels made a formal offer of wide-ranging “cooperation” with Nazi Germany.

‘Political Partnership’

In April 1938, journeyman diplomat Herbert von Dirksen was appointed Nazi Germany’s ambassador to London. A committed National Socialist and rabid antisemite, he also harboured a particularly visceral loathing of Poles, believing them to be subhuman, eagerly supporting Poland’s total erasure. Despite this, due to his English language fluency and aristocratic manners, he charmed British officials and citizens alike, and was widely perceived locally as Nazi Germany’s respectable face.

Even more vitally though, Dirksen – in common with many powerful elements of the British establishment – was convinced that not only could war be avoided, but London and Berlin would instead forge a global economic, military, and political alliance. His 18 months in Britain before the outbreak of World War II were spent working tirelessly to achieve these goals, by establishing and maintaining communication lines between officials and decisionmakers in the two countries, while attempting to broker deals.

Dirksen published an official memoir in 1950, detailing his lengthy diplomatic career. However, far more revealing insights into the period immediately preceding World War II, and behind-the-scenes efforts to achieve enduring detente between Britain and Nazi Germany, are contained in the virtually unknown Dirksen Papers, a two-volume record released by the Soviet Union’s Foreign Languages Publishing House without his consent. They contain private communications sent to and from Dirksen, diary entries, and memos he wrote for himself, never intended for public consumption.

Documents And Materials Relating To The Eve Of The Second World War Ii

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The contents were sourced from a vast trove of documents found by the Red Army after it seized Gröditzberg, a castle owned by Dirksen where he spent most of World War II. Mainstream historians have markedly made no use of the Dirksen Papers. Whether this is due to their bombshell disclosures posing a variety of dire threats to established Western narratives of World War II, and revealing much the British government wishes to remain forever secret, is a matter of speculation.

Immediately after World War II began, Dirksen “keenly” felt an “obligation” to author a detailed post-mortem on the failure of Britain’s peace overtures to Nazi Germany, and his own. He was particularly compelled to write it as “all important documents” in Berlin’s London embassy had been burned following Britain’s formal declaration of war on September 3rd 1939. Reflecting on his experiences, Dirksen spoke of “the tragic and paramount thing about the rise of the new Anglo-German war”:

“Germany demanded an equal place with Britain as a world power…Britain was in principle prepared to concede. But, whereas Germany demanded immediate, complete and unequivocal satisfaction of her demands, Britain – although she was ready to renounce her Eastern commitments, and…allow Germany a predominant position in East and Southeast Europe, and to discuss genuine world political partnership with Germany – wanted this to be done only by way of negotiation and a gradual revision of British policy.”

‘German Reply’

From London’s perspective, Dirksen lamented, this radical change in the global order “could be effected in a period of months, but not of days or weeks.” Another stumbling block was the British and French making a “guarantee” to defend Poland in the event she was attacked by Nazi Germany, in March 1939. This bellicose stance – along with belligerent speeches from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain – was at total odds with simultaneous conciliatory approaches such as Düsseldorf, and the private stances and utterances of British officials to their Nazi counterparts.

In any event, it appears London instantly regretted its pledge to defend Poland. Dirksen records in his post-mortem how subsequently, senior British officials told him they sought “an Anglo-German entente” that would “render Britain’s guarantee policy nugatory” and “enable Britain to extricate her from her predicament in regard to Poland,” so Warsaw would “be left to face Germany alone”.

In mid-July 1939, Horace Wilson – an extremely powerful civil servant and Chamberlain’s right hand man – approached Göring’s chief aide Helmuth Wohlthat during a visit to London. Wilson “outlined a program for a comprehensive adjustment of Anglo-German relations” to him, which amounted to a radical overhaul of the two countries’ “political, military and economic arrangements.” This included “a non-aggression pact”, explicitly concerned with shredding Britain’s “guarantee” to Warsaw. Dirksen noted:

“The underlying purpose of this treaty was to make it possible for the British gradually to disembarrass themselves of their commitments toward Poland, on the ground that they had…secured Germany’s renunciation of methods of aggression.” 

Elsewhere, “comprehensive” proposals for economic cooperation were outlined, with the promise of “negotiations…to be undertaken on colonial questions, supplies of raw material for Germany, delimitation of industrial markets, international debt problems, and the application of the most favoured nation clause.” In addition, a realignment of “the spheres of interest of the Great Powers” would be up for discussion, opening the door for further Nazi territorial expansion. Dirksen makes clear these grand plans were fully endorsed at the British government’s highest levels:

“The importance of Wilson’s proposals was demonstrated by the fact that Wilson invited Wohlthat to have them confirmed by Chamberlain personally.”

During his stay in London, Wohlthat also had extensive discussions with Overseas Trade Secretary Robert Hudson, who told him “three big regions offered the two nations an immense field for economic activity.” This included the existing British Empire, China and Russia. “Here agreement was possible; as also in other regions,” including the Balkans, where “England had no economic ambitions.” In other words, resource-rich Yugoslavia would be Nazi Germany’s for the taking, under the terms of “world political partnership” with Britain.

Dirksen outlined the contents of Wohlthat’s talks with Hudson and Wilson in a “strictly secret” internal memo, excitedly noting “England alone could not adequately take care of her vast Empire, and it would be quite possible for Germany to be given a rather comprehensive share.” A telegram dispatched to Dirksen from the German Foreign Office on July 31st 1939 recorded Wohlthat had informed Göring of Britain’s secret proposals, who in turn notified Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.

Dirksen noted elsewhere Wohlthat specifically asked the British how such negotiations “might be put on a tangible footing.” Wilson informed him “the decisive thing” was for Hitler to “[make] his willingness known” by officially authorising a senior Nazi official to discuss the “program”. Wilson “furthermore strongly stressed the great value the British government laid upon a German reply” to these offers, and how London “considered that slipping into war was the only alternative.”

‘Authoritarian Regimes’

No “reply” apparently ever came. On September 1st 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Britain declared war on Germany two days later, and the rest is history – albeit history that is subject to determined obfuscation, constant rewriting, and deliberate distortion. Polls of European citizens conducted in the immediate aftermath of World War II showed there was little public doubt that the Red Army was primarily responsible for Nazi Germany’s destruction, while Britain and the US were perceived as playing mere walk-on roles.

For example, in 1945, 57% of French citizens believed Moscow “contributed most to the defeat of Germany in 1945” – just 20% named the US, and 12% Britain. By 2015, less than a quarter of respondents recognised the Soviet role, with 54% believing the US to be Nazism’s ultimate vanquisher. Meanwhile, a survey on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June 2024 found 42% of Britons believed their own country had done more to crush Hitler than all other allies combined.

The same poll identified a staggering level of ignorance among British citizens of all ages about World War II more generally, with only two thirds of respondents even able to place D-Day as having occurred during that conflict. The pollsters didn’t gauge public knowledge of Britain’s long-running, concerted attempts to forge a global Empire with Nazi Germany in the War’s leadup, although betting is high that the figure would be approximately zero.

Meanwhile, in 2009 the European Parliament instituted a day of remembrance on August 23rd each year, to “mark the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes”. This is just one of several modern-day initiatives to perversely conflate Communism and Nazism, while transforming Wehrmacht and SS collaborators, Holocaust perpetrators, and fascists in countries liberated by the Red Army into victims, and laying blame for World War II at Russia’s feet, by dent of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

What officials in London proposed to Hitler in 1939 far eclipsed the terms of that controversial agreement, but there will of course be no consideration of this when VE Day is celebrated in Western capitals in 2025. In Britain, the government has “encouraged” the public to host street parties, and attend a march by over 1,300 uniformed soldiers from Parliament Square to Buckingham Palace. It is a bitter irony the procession will start and end at the very places where, eight decades ago, support for Nazi Germany was strongest in the country.

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By Lev Golinkin, The Forward, 4/24/25

If you’re wondering about the state of Holocaust remembrance in 2025, a foreign government recently celebrated a Holocaust perpetrator on United States soil — and no one raised an eyebrow.

On March 9, Ukraine’s Chicago consulate posted photos of Consul Serhiy Koledov participating in a commemoration for Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych, whose troops massacred Jews and Poles. This is the story of how that event, at St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago, happened — and why some of the same people who usually speak out against Holocaust revisionism are refusing to say anything about it.

Holocaust distortion continues to be a rampant problem, with monuments to monsters going up regularly. But continuing celebrations of Shukhevych, whose men were responsible for many thousands of deaths during World War II, stand out: The U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy on Holocaust Issues has twice highlighted Shukhevych glorification as an example of Holocaust revisionism.

Similar condemnations have come from the World Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Israel.

Why? For starters, unlike some other collaborators, Shukhevych actually served in Nazi uniform. He was a hauptmann, or captain, in the Nachtigall Battalion, an auxiliary police unit in the Third Reich military that participated in the deadly 1941 Lviv pogrom.

After getting hands-on experience in conducting a genocide with the Germans, Shukhevych went on to lead the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a paramilitary group that butchered thousands of Jews and between 70,000 and 100,000 Polish villagers.

So why does Ukraine still insist on lionizing him?

Well, first of all, it’s a mistake to ascribe that insistence to Ukraine, unilaterally. Two million Ukrainians died fighting against the Nazis and their lackeys. Only a portion of the country’s populace today will defend its Nazi collaborators; millions more revile them. Saying Ukraine idolizes Shukhevych is like saying America idolizes Robert E. Lee.

But those who do honor Shukhevych vehemently deny that they’re commemorating a Nazi collaborator. They instead dub him a “hero” and “freedom fighter of Ukraine” who resisted Moscow — those are exact terms used by the Chicago consulate in describing the March commemoration. They insist his memory has been unfairly smeared by Russia. They’ll even claim that the UPA saved Jews, a lie that’s been disproved by scholars.

These excuses are similar to those peddled by fans of the Confederacy and, more currently, Hamas. That’s what Holocaust revisionism is: an act of transforming war criminals into role models.

Almost anyone affiliated with a political movement can claim to be a freedom fighter. The Hamas militants who butchered, kidnapped and raped civilians in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, were, to some, fighting for freedom. The question is: Whose freedom, and the freedom to do what?

The freedom Shukhevych fought for — and exercised — was freedom to slaughter Jews in ditches and murder Poles in particularly graphic fashion, including by crucifixion.

So why are so many so hesitant to call out celebrations of his memory?

Neither Chicago’s main Jewish federation nor the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum responded to numerous requests for comment. I met the same silence from the Anti-Defamation League — which, the same week as the ceremony at the Chicago consulate, lambasted podcaster Joe Rogan for an episode featuring a man who traffics in Holocaust revisionism.

Rogan is extremely influential. But surely a fete for an actual Holocaust perpetrator should warrant mention, too?

It was silence, as well, from Rep. Brad Schneider, who represents Chicago’s north suburbs. In 2022, Schneider, who is Jewish, proudly announced that he was drafting legislation to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for comparing former President Joe Biden to Adolf Hitler. “She owes the American people, the survivors and families of those persecuted by the Nazis, and every family of what is still the ‘Greatest Generation’ an immediate apology,” he proclaimed.

If Ukraine doesn’t want to be accused of honoring Nazis, the first thing to do is quit honoring Nazis.

One would think the representative who couldn’t sleep knowing someone compared Biden to Hitler would be aghast at the celebration of a Nazi collaborator in his backyard. But Schneider’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

I suspect that much of the reason why has to do with the broad movement for solidarity with Ukraine amid its ongoing war after Russia’s 2022 invasion. I’ve been told that drawing attention to Ukraine’s penchant for honoring Nazi collaborators feeds into the Kremlin’s attempt to paint Ukrainians as Nazi lovers.

But it isn’t justifying that war to make the point that if you don’t want to be accused of honoring Nazis, the first thing to do is quit honoring Nazis.

Indeed, the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a godsend for Shukhevych fans. People rightfully outraged by Russia’s war crimes now think twice about criticizing Kyiv, or its emissaries elsewhere. Those who glorify Holocaust perpetrators cynically weaponize this sympathy to commit brazen acts — like throwing a lovefest for a Third Reich hauptmann in the heartland of a nation that lost more than 405,000 men in the fight to defeat the Nazis and their allies.

I look at photographs of the Jews hunted and murdered by Shukhevych’s men in Lviv and elsewhere and ask myself: If I were them, how would I feel about my fellow Jews — safe, privileged Jews with jobs in Congress, or with organizations that collect millions to fight antisemitism — failing to speak out when my tormentors get cheered as heroes?

How far we have fallen to even require the question.

By John Helmer, Website, 5/3/25

John Helmer has been a Moscow-based journalist for over three decades.

After the Victory Day celebration later this week, President Vladimir Putin has agreed to hold a summit meeting with President Donald Trump. “The Americans have repeatedly asked for a summit and the Kremlin has finally decided,” according to a reliable Moscow source, “that there is no need to spurn the extended hand.”

The source believes Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is the likely location. Preparatory discussions were held last week in Moscow when Putin telephoned the UAE President, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Kremlin communiqué claimed [3]“the current state of Russia-UAE relations…constitute a strategic partnership and…enables ongoing dialogue even on the most sensitive international issues.” That was on May 1. The next day Putin met [4] with Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the President’s sons and his personal security chief, titled deputy prime minister. 

The Moscow source says “the messages have been sent that it will not be a conclusive deal, only a meeting. This is a climb-down from the previous, public Russian position that a lot of work needs to be done first, before a presidential summit, by specialists. The Russians have understood there are no specialists on the US side yet, and the opportunity is right to shake hands first, then work out the details later.”

The White House press spokesman has announced [5] Trump “will travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates [in this order] from May 13th, until May 16th.” 

“It’s a display of the Russian hand of friendship and mutual security,” the Moscow source adds. “The Americans are offering nothing concrete but we believe Trump is disposed to giving Russia the security steps it needs.”

The source says the Kremlin is “neither surprised nor disappointed” at Trump’s May 1 tweet [6] declaring that “many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II.”   “It shows you how foolish the Kremlin faction was which has advocated inviting Trump to Red Square for May 9. Putin will give Trump his PR opportunity – but in the sand, not in Red Square.”

The shift in the Moscow consensus – from resistance on the part of the General Staff, the intelligence agencies, and the Foreign Ministry – has followed remarks by Vice President JD Vance. “It’s going to be up to them [Russia and Ukraine] to come to agreement and stop this brutal, brutal conflict,” he said on Friday (May 2 [7]). “It’s not going anywhere right [now]. It’s not going to end any time soon…Look, I am optimistic, but it’s hard to say…confident because the Russians and the Ukrainians – they’re the ones who have to take the final step. We got ‘em talkin’. We got ‘em offering peace proposals. We got the minerals deal done. I think we’re in a place where they’ve got to say we’re done with the fighting…but only Russia and Ukraine can make that decision. That’s not something even President Trump can do for ‘em.”  

In Moscow this is interpreted as acceptance by Washington that the war will continue on Russia’s terms – slow advance westward, no massed offensive – and that it’s now up to “direct” negotiations between Russia and Ukraine to reach an agreement. “This is a double signal prompting Putin”, another Moscow source says, “to agree to a summit meeting with Trump now without preconditions and without pressure to agree on the Kellogg or Witkoff term sheets. In all likelihood, this will be a feel-good summit. No negotiations at all.”

The source adds a caution. “The planned meeting may be derailed at the last minute if the Ukrainians violate the Victory Day ceasefire [between May 8 and 11], and if Trump is either shown to be incapable of controlling the Kiev regime, or duplicitous in aiding the violations. If the Ukrainians do not observe it, the Russians will hit back hard, very hard, and then ask Trump if he still wants to meet. It might go to the wire.”

What Vance said about the Ukrainian minerals deal is interpreted in Moscow to mean that Trump and his officials will back down and retreat from deal terms they start with, in order to accept instead the appearance of a deal Trump and Vance can announce. If Zelensky can do that to Trump, the Russian assessment is that Putin can do as much, or better.

Reports from Kiev and European capitals, where the secret provisions of the minerals deal have been disclosed [9], indicate a plan for nothing more than a national offshore zone free of taxes, tariffs and other charges by either the Ukrainian or the US governments [10]. In this outcome, the Americans have abandoned Trump’s demand for the reparations clause – payback for past military and economic aid. They have also given up the US demand for first-refusal priority over British, French, German or Polish companies in the bidding for resource projects. Rare earth minerals, oil, and gas have also been abandoned as Trump targets. The only target of the proposed projects identified in the agreement text is “critical sectors of Ukraine’s economy.”

In return — although not yet publicly acknowledged — the Trump Administration has agreed to Zelensky’s request for release of a $500 million instalment of new military deliveries, with promises of more to come payable either in cash or in assignment to the US capital contribution of the new “US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.” 

“From here on every faction has its own view”, says a Moscow source privy to current intelligence assessments. “In his conclusion Putin has decided there is nothing to be lost by meeting so long as Trump does not insist on a full ceasefire. The understanding now is that Americans — Vance – are stating the war will continue for a time. This gives the Russians an opening they want for a meeting. They have decided they will take it. It’s an unconditional meeting – a Teheran-type summit [11] for the top dogs to sort things out”.

“Some consider it a trap but others consider that Trump is not playing the European tune and is set on different terms he’s calling peace with Russia. In the talks so far, Russians laid out their demands; Americans kept on saying let’s have ‘peace’ and then we will sort things out. Russians kept insisting there are too many issues and sticking points. Americans also understand that Russians cannot make significant military gains in the short to medium term – no big offensive across the Dnieper. But what they have gained has been costly and they are not giving it up. Nor do Ukrainians — they have tried to convince the Americans that this is a stalemate and this is where the lines should freeze. That leaves Trump in something of a stalemate. So, his people have expressed willingness to discuss ‘everything’ in Ukraine, in bilateral and in European issues. They have proposed to sort out the bigger issues and details ‘in time.’ This has forced on Russians a decision now on whether to end the conversations or extend them.”

“What they also see is the opportunity of a lifetime to deal with a president who represents a stubborn, loyal constituency of 25% to 35%, who is not charged up racially as Russophobes, and does not harbour hatred, at least not for Russians. So, the consensus now around Putin, with no illusions about the deep state, is that this is an opportunity Putin must not let pass. A breakdown in friendly communications is not desirable.”

“They are not giving away anything but they will talk and continue talking all through [Trump’s] presidency in good faith, with respect. The conclusion is there is nothing to be gained by not talking, not much to be gained by sticking to positions which cannot be significantly expanded on the battlefield right now. Moreover, even the smallest US withdrawal of support from Kiev will give Russians an edge. This is something Trump is not going to give unless Putin comes to meet him face to face.”

Undiscussed by the Russian military bloggers who know, or by the American podcasters who pretend to know but don’t, is the battlefield problem. Without discussing operational details, several Moscow sources in a position to know say the indicators are “obvious that things are not as they should be on the front and all the way back, up and down the ranks. One is the slowness of the advance of each of army groups westward. Another is the nine months it took to reverse the surprise success of the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk. Yet another is problems of command and control up and down, and coordination sideways.”

An unusual analysis confirming what the Russian sources are saying has just been published by retired Hungarian Army major, Mark Takacs [12]. He identifies himself as pro-Ukrainian in sympathy; his analysis does not reflect this.

Basing himself on open Ukrainian and Russian sources, as well as on Hungarian army staff studies and his own field experience, Takacs has just issued this report on months-long military operations of the Russian West army group around Kupyansk, east of Kharkov (December-April 28), and the Centre army group around Toretsk. North of Donetsk. (April [13]).   Although the outcomes of the Russian operations have been tactical success and territorial gains, Takacs identifies battlefield problems slowing down the Russian advance because of Ukrainian reinforcement of men and arms, counterattacking drone and electronic suppression operations, and inflicting serious Russian losses of men, armour and electronic (jamming) stations.

“Until reliable anti-drone air defence artillery will have been developed, the classic onward penetration is impossible to achieve if the defender has adequate drone capabilities,” Takacs says [13].   The Ukrainians have these capabilities — with US and NATO intelligence-sharing and coordination with battlefield combat command and control.

Takacs also claims the Russian battlefield operations are hampered by excessive rigidity of their command and control lines. This makes for predictability of movement, which, in his analysis, has been exploited by the reconnaissance and counterfire resources of the combined Ukrainian, US and NATO drone operations.

According to independent military and Moscow sources, Takacs’s conclusions come far closer to the battlefield situation than the retired US majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels currently publishing on podcasts and substacks. A NATO veteran comments: “Yes, it’s hard to pull off a surprise attack in the transparent battlefield situation in which the Russians are fighting. This being said, how were the Russians caught by surprise in Kursk last August, and by the Ukrainian counter-attacks around Pokrovsk which Takacs has just described?”

“We can also be forgiven for asking why Ukrainian command and control, as well as the logistics which allow the movement of mechanized Ukrainian fire-brigade units, like the 33rd Assault shown in this Takacs report, continue to have the benefit of electricity? My hunch is there’s a correlation between Russian advances on the front and electric war strikes. So the question here is why the Russian electric war campaign has been restricted or suspended, allowing the Ukrainians to deploy resources to the front, blocking the Russians, when that would be impossible if the power was out in areas of production, distribution, command and control, and assembly/support.”

The selection of the UAE as the site for the Putin-Trump summit meeting has special significance in the financial calculations of both the Russian and US sides. An investment fund source in Dubai explains: “Abu Dhabi and Dubai have positioned themselves as major crypto currency hubs while most other countries, including the US, adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach for over a decade. Trump has now done a 180-degree change in policy on crypto. According to CNBC [16], ‘at the Office of the United States Comptroller of the Currency, Jonathan Gould [right], has signalled support for issuing new bank charters to crypto firms. During President Joe Biden’s presidency, that was almost unthinkable.’  

“The analysts quoted by CNBC say that ‘new banks [are] getting set up that are expressly focused on crypto and stablecoins.’ This should be seen against the backdrop of overt threats from Trump to the BRICS countries, which he repeated in January [17], against adopting a new currency for trade and halting the trade in US dollars. While there are no real signs of progress for the BRICS currency, the Russian Central Bank has begun implementing the financial infrastructure after the Duma passed a law in July 2024 allowing Russian companies to settle their foreign trade in cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and stablecoins. The Trump Administration does not see the use of crypto currencies by the Russians as a threat to the US dollar and takes a positive view of this development.”

“While one of the key demands of Putin’s negotiator Kirill Dmitriev [18] has been to restore Russia in the SWIFT messaging system, the US may not be able to make it happen because the system is operated by a Belgian cooperative in which the US, European, Swiss and Chinese banks collectively take decisions and European Union has significant influence through the German, Swiss, French and London banks in the cooperative. Getting the Trump Administration to acquiesce in Russian use of cryptocurrencies will be a significant relief for the Russians. The fact that the summit will take place in Abu Dhabi will reinforce market confidence in crypto for trade payments as an alternative to SWIFT, under the protection of the UAE.”

Dubai — the Russians also understand, according to a Moscow financial source — is the hub where Dmitriev’s oligarch constituents can negotiate large money transfers to the Trump family who have set up investment funds with family members of Trump’s advisors, Steven Witkoff and Howard Lutnick, as well as with other large campaign contributors and Trump influencers.

Left, Trump negotiator Steven Witkoff’s son Zach and Eric Trump of World Liberty Financial [20]; for more on their business, read this [21]. “The company’s dealings have created conflicts of interest with no precedent in modern U.S. history,” reported the New York Times [22]. “Some of the investors who bought $WLFI coins are foreign nationals who have been barred from supporting a president via campaign contributions or donations to the inaugural fund. And many of the firm’s corporate partners have clear incentives to curry favor with the federal government as they seek to expand in the American market.” 

Right, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and son Brandon Lutnick of the bitcoin investment fund, Twenty One Capital Group [23]. For the Russian oligarch shopping list, click [24].    

Cautions the Moscow source: “Dmitriev is there to say there is a lot of money at the end of this, and maybe along the way, too, for key US industrial bigwigs and oligarchs, but there is nothing Russia will give away on its core goals in Ukraine and in European security. Platitudes aplenty, talks on money (but not yet much) — no real surrender on any of Russia’s terms. So, a decision has been made that Putin will give Trump a break, try and win him over, give him something, and try and take as much as he can in the months to follow.”

“By the way, there is near-unanimity among Russian [decision-makers] that Trump is not certain to start a military conflict with China. It will remain a trade war which will get settled this year.”

By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 5/1/25

The U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement is not a diplomatic breakthrough and will not end the war, but it is a significant success for Ukraine, both in the short term and — if it is ever in fact implemented — in the longer term.

It reportedly does not get Ukraine the security “guarantees” that Kyiv has been asking for. It does not commit the U.S. to fight for Ukraine, or to back up a European “reassurance force” for Ukraine. And NATO membership remains off the table. Given its basic positions, there is no chance of the Trump administration shifting on these points.

But since the Ukraine peace process appeared to run out of steam, and Trump threatened to “walk away” from the talks, Kyiv and Moscow have been engaged in an elaborate diplomatic dance of semi-proposals and hints to try to ensure that if Trump does walk away, he will blame the other side for the talks’ failure.

This agreement makes it far more likely that he will blame Russia, and therefore that he will continue military and intelligence aid to Ukraine. He may also, as threatened, try to impose additional sanctions on Russia — though given the resistance of most of the world to these sanctions, and tensions over tariffs between the U.S. and Europe, it is not at all clear how effective new sanctions would be.

Continued U.S. military and intelligence aid will not win the war for Ukraine, nor allow it to drive the Russians from occupied territory. It will however help the Ukrainian army to slow down Russia’s advance on the ground and impose heavy casualties on the Russian army. This should not be taken by the Ukrainians or their European supporters as an excuse to maintain impossible conditions for peace that will make a settlement impossible; because the military and economic odds are still strongly against Ukraine, and a collapse of Ukraine’s exhausted troops is a real possibility.

However, it will make it more likely that Russia will abandon or heavily qualify its impossible demands, for example for Ukrainian disarmament and withdrawal from additional territory.

As far as the deal itself is concerned, it is clearly far more favorable for Ukraine than Trump’s original — and grotesque — proposal that Ukraine should essentially hand its entire reserves of minerals to the U.S. in compensation for U.S. aid. Under the new agreement, the profits of mineral extraction will be equally shared.

As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. … President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine. And to be clear, no state or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

Nor under this deal will any U.S. money go to develop mineral extraction in the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

According to Trump, “The American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we’re doing the digging.”

Despite Western rhetoric, absolute Western security guarantees for Ukraine after a peace settlement have never really been on offer, because the Biden administration and almost every other NATO government stated repeatedly that they would not fight to defend Ukraine. This deal, if implemented, will however ensure a strong continued U.S. interest in Ukraine. It greatly reduces the risk that in the event of future Russian aggression, the U.S. would simply look away and not respond as it has in this war, with military supplies and extreme sanctions.

But the deal won’t be implemented until the war comes to an end. Thereafter, it will depend on the willingness of U.S. private companies to invest in this sector — and that will depend on their assessment of both the risks and the profits involved. For it is vital to note that this agreement does not commit the U.S. government to invest in Ukraine; and to judge by the present profitability of minerals extraction in the world, it is not certain that private investors will see major benefits from doing so.

China has developed its rare-earth sector on such a scale mainly through huge state-directed investment; and no-one has so far done a thorough analysis of the actual profitability and scale of most of these Ukrainian resources. So, only a tactical success for Ukraine and one over which there hang many questions; but nonetheless one that hopefully will lead Moscow to respond with some serious and acceptable peace proposals of its own.