Global Village Space, 3/28/25

In an interview with the French daily Le Figaro published on Wednesday [late March 2025], Zelensky identified the emotion as one of his three key psychological drivers since the escalation of the conflict in February 2022.

Zelensky said he hated “Russians who killed so many Ukrainian citizens,” adding that he considered such an attitude appropriate in wartime. His other motivations included a sense of national dignity and the desire for his descendants to live “in the free world.”

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of being a historic oppressor while Zelensky has previously touted Ukrainians’ “love of freedom” as a trait that distinguishes them from Russians.

Zelensky, whose presidential term expired last year, was elected in 2019 on a platform of defusing tensions with Moscow and reconciling ethnic Russian Ukrainians in Donbass, many of whom opposed the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev. However, his initial diplomatic efforts were thwarted by radical Ukrainian nationalists in the body politic.

Since the coup, Kiev has enacted various policies undermining the rights of ethnic minorities, with Russians as the primary target. Moscow has accused Zelensky of intensifying the crackdown, particularly by attacking the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious denomination, which now faces potential prohibition for having historic links with Russia.

In a recent interview, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Zelensky caters to “the segment of the population that holds radical, ultra-right, revanchist, Banderite views,” as his image as a national leader increasingly deteriorates.

“Zelensky does not want to display weakness, as he realizes that his days are numbered,” the Russian official claimed.

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News, 4/21/25

Neo-Nazism’s rise in Ukraine is due to the silent approval of Ukraine’s political and military elites who prefer to turn a blind eye because they rely on the far-right for their military potential, Ukrainian academic Marta Havryshko tells Natylie Baldwin.

Dr. Marta Havryshko holds a Ph.D. in History from the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, Ukraine. Her research interests are primarily focused on sexual violence during World War II and the Holocaust, women’s history, feminism, and nationalism.

She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her Twitter handle is @HavryshkoMarta.

I spoke with her recently via email. 

Baldwin: Please tell us a bit about your academic background and how you came to focus on the holocaust and Ukrainian ultra-nationalism?

Havryshko: Ukrainian ultra-nationalism is something that has surrounded me since childhood. I grew up in a village in Galicia, a region that holds a special place in the history of the Ukrainian nationalist underground, as it was here that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), founded in 1929, and its military wing — the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which emerged in 1942 — were especially active.

Some of my relatives were involved in these organizations and were later repressed by the Soviet regime for their participation. Family memory was saturated with stories of forced collectivization.

No family gathering passed without my grandfather recounting how the Soviets took away his family’s oxen, and how, when those oxen were later driven past their house to pasture, they made sorrowful sounds. Actually, the land, where my parents erected a house in [the] 2000s long ago belonged to our family and was seized by Soviets in 1939, when they occupied Western Ukraine due to [the] Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

Despite the ethnic diversity in my family, the stories centered on the Ukrainian one were dominant. I believe this was partly due to it being a survival strategy in a small Galician community, which had various instruments of social control —including over the hegemonic memory regime. My school was one such guardian of the “correct” national memory.

The history of Ukrainian nationalism was taught as both heroic and tragic, with a clear division between the “good guys” (Ukrainian nationalists) and the “bad guys” (Soviets). War crimes and crimes against humanity committed by OUN and UPA were obscured, marginalized, and silenced in the educational program. The glorification of these organizations became a fundamental part of “patriotic upbringing” at my school. That is why, to this day, I know all the nationalist songs by heart.

When I became a history student at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, I didn’t significantly deepen my knowledge about OUN and UPA, as an apologetic approach to them prevailed in the academic environment. So, after defending my dissertation on the attitudes of various Galician political circles toward Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939, I decided to delve deeper into the history of Ukrainian nationalism during WWII. My findings shocked me.

I realized that many of those who are celebrated in Ukraine as freedom fighters were, in fact, involved in the Nazi Holocaust and anti-Jewish violence. The myth that Jews willingly served in the UPA shattered when I started conducting interviews with my informants—dozens of women who had been part of the OUN underground.

One lady told me there was a Jewish doctor in her UPA unit, but he was always under guard. “Why?” I asked. “So he wouldn’t escape,” she replied, surprised by my ‘naivety’. This story — like many others I heard — revealed the forced mobilization of Jewish professionals into the ranks of the UPA. Some of them were executed in the spring of 1944, as they were suspected of potentially siding with the Soviets.

Baldwin: You’ve written a lot about how the history of WWII and how the holocaust has been weaponized by both Russia and Ukraine in the current conflict. Can you explain what you see as the misuse of the holocaust and WWII by the Russian government and nationalists?

Havryshko: The memory of World War II plays a crucial role in the political and military discourse of the Russian-Ukrainian war. And not only because it is the largest war in Europe since 1945. And not only because there are still living witnesses of the Nazi occupation in Ukraine, who often compare the behavior of the Nazis to that of Russian soldiers in the occupied Ukrainian territories.

The memory of World War II is weaponized by different political actors for political and military purposes. For example, when Putin began his angry speech on the night of February 24, 2022, he emphasized that one of the goals of the so-called “special military operation” was the “denazification” of Ukraine.

Top Russian propagandists frequently refer to the Ukrainian government as a “Nazi regime” and call Ukrainian soldiers “Nazis.” State actors construct a hegemonic narrative that evokes the memory of the brave Soviet people, particularly Russians, who fought against the Nazis and their allies. This idea is clearly represented in the so-called Immortal Regiment marches held in major Russian cities every May 9 during Victory Day celebrations.

During these processions, people carry portraits of their ancestors who fought in the “Great Patriotic War.” Since 2022, participants in some of these events have also begun carrying portraits of Russian soldiers who died in the war against Ukraine—portraying them as the successors of their grandfathers who fought the Nazis.

Russian soldiers participating in the war against Ukraine also wear symbols and patches that allude to WWII memory—for example, the ribbon of Saint George. In Ukraine, the opposite trend is observed. Some Ukrainian soldiers wear patches bearing the symbol of the Waffen-SS Division “Galicia,” formed in 1943 under German command.

There is also a unit in the Ukrainian army named “Nachtigall,” after the battalion formed by the German Abwehr in 1941 from ethnic Ukrainians. Another unit named Luftwaffe uses Nazi eagle as its symbol.

The “Vedmedi” unit uses SS bolts and the SS motto “My Honor is Loyalty” as official insignia. Some soldiers also wear patches featuring symbols of various SS divisions, including infamous Dirlewanger Brigade, and the Nazi eagle. Some soldiers of the Russian Volunteer Corps wear ROA patches (Russian Liberation Army, aligned with Nazi Germany).

A number of soldiers have even founded clothing brands that glorify the Wehrmacht and de facto justify Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust.

This trend is deeply absurd, given that the Nazi occupation regime in Ukraine led to the deaths of millions of people, including 1.5 million Jews.  However, in the logic of those soldiers who glorify the army of the Third Reich, the Nazis fought against the main enemy of the Ukrainian nation — the Russians and the Soviet Union.

In doing so, they artificially isolate this particular aspect of Nazism, while ignoring its crimes. This is an extremely dangerous trend that, unfortunately, is gaining popularity, due to the silent approval of Ukraine’s political and military elites, which prefer to turn a blind eye on this because they rely on the far-right in terms of their military potential.

Baldwin: Can you also explain how the Ukrainian government and its western allies have white-washed the contemporary Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and their historical role in the WWII massacres against Jews, Poles and others?

Havryshko: For a long time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the glorification of OUN and UPA remained mostly a regional cult, specific to Western Ukraine. After the Maidan revolution, this cult began to be artificially promoted at the national level.

Firstly, this was facilitated by the creation of the so-called Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, which made the glorification of Ukrainian nationalists one of its key areas of work. Secondly, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a memorial law in 2015 that recognized members of the OUN and UPA as “fighters for the independence of Ukraine” and introduced penalties for individuals who “publicly express disrespect” toward them.

A number of Western scholars criticized this law, fearing that it would close the door to open discussion about the complex history of the OUN and UPA.

Despite this, both state and non-state memory actors in Ukraine launched a vigorous campaign to heroize Ukrainian nationalists. This was reflected in the emergence of numerous new places of memory — such as monuments, museums, memorial plaques, street names, exhibitions, documentary films, programs, etc. At the same time, a process of so-called “decommunization” began, aimed at erasing everything connected to Ukraine’s Soviet past from the public space.

This memory crusade targeted not only monuments to Lenin, Dzerzhinsky, Kosior, and other Soviet figures involved in mass repressions and other Soviet crimes, but also soldiers of the Red Army who liberated Ukraine from German occupation. This war on everything Soviet entered a new phase after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

One of its consequences has been an even deeper “Banderization” of Ukraine (from Stepan Bandera—the leader of the OUN). Streets named after Stepan Bandera and UPA commander Roman Shukhevych began to appear in regions like Chernihiv, Odesa, Kherson, Donetsk, and Poltava — places where these historical figures were never popular, and were often seen as Nazi collaborators responsible for political terror against Ukrainians who had built the “Soviet national project” in Ukraine.

The problem with this memorialization lies in the fact that Bandera, Shukhevych, and other members of the OUN and UPA were proponents of ethnic nationalism, racism, and antisemitism and an authoritarian state. They collaborated with the Nazis and took part in their crimes, including the Holocaust.

Furthermore, they are responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 Polish civilians in Ukraine during World War II as part of their nationalist project to build an ethnically homogeneous state.

They also widely used terror against Ukrainian civilians who criticized their actions. They often applied the principle of collective punishment, killing entire families—including small children—of alleged “enemies of the Ukrainian nation.”

However, these inconvenient facts are being concealed, and those who criticize this ethnonationalist memory regime are labeled “Russian agents”—a charge which, in the context of war with Russia, not only delegitimizes them but effectively puts a target on their backs.

They are subjected to cancel culture, bullied by their colleagues, and their voices are silenced and marginalized. This is being done because a heroic historical myth is needed by the state to consolidate society around political leadership during wartime. In other words, the state is instrumentalizing historical myths and nationalist memory in its war efforts.

What is particularly notable is that Western scholars, who were until recently quite critical of the glorification of the OUN and UPA, are now largely silent. Moreover, some are framing this ethnonationalist memorial policy as part of the nation-building process and decolonization.

In doing so, they are legitimizing dangerous trends—glorification of ethnonationalism, racism, antisemitism, and the justification of ethnic and political violence in the name of the nation. This poses a threat to a Ukrainian democratic future and clearly contradicts talking points that Ukraine is fighting for “freedom and democracy” in its resistance to Russian aggression.

Baldwin: There have been many reports in recent years about the growing influence of ultranationalists on Ukrainian society and culture. For example, there are reports of Ukrainian schoolbooks that teach outlandish propaganda, such as suggesting that Ukraine was the linguistic origin of western European languages and revering Nazi era war criminals. As far as you are aware, to what extent is there such propaganda in Ukrainian schools? What does this portend for the future of Ukrainian society?

Havryshko: The whitewashing of the Ukrainian nationalist underground—which inevitably leads to Nazi apologism and Holocaust distortion—is one of the most troubling developments in public schools across Ukraine. For example, not long ago, all schools in Lviv, following an order from the city council, widely commemorated the anniversary of the death of Roman Shukhevych, who was killed by the Soviets on March 5, 1950. Children of various ages watched propaganda films and attended lectures. The youngest students were encouraged to draw the red-and-black flag of the UPA or portraits of Shukhevych. These forms of memorialization were clearly apologetic. I highly doubt that the children were offered any opportunity to discuss the role of the 201st Schutzmannschaft Battalion, which Shukhevych commanded during punitive actions against civilians in Belarus in 1942, or his responsibility for other war crimes.

Any attempts to include critical questions about the history of the OUN and UPA in Ukrainian school textbooks are met with strong resistance from nationalist circles. A few years ago, for instance, a scandal broke out in Lviv when a history textbook referred to the “Nachtigall” Battalion as a collaborationist formation—which it indeed was, since it was created by the Germans and served German interests.

The anti-Jewish violence committed by Ukrainian nationalists is one of the most hidden and suppressed chapters in the school curriculum. Recently, I came across a 10th-grade history textbook published in 2023. It contained no information at all about the pogroms that took place in Western Ukraine in the summer of 1941. In many places, these pogroms occurred during a power vacuum—after the Soviet army had retreated and before the Germans had fully arrived.

Taking advantage of this vacuum, members of the OUN in towns and villages across Galicia, Bukovyna, and Volyn organized killings, beatings, rapes, and robberies of their Jewish neighbors—accusing them collectively of crimes of the Soviet regime and declaring them enemies of the Ukrainian people.

In cities like Lviv, Ternopil, and Zolochiv, these pogroms were instigated by the Germans, but local Ukrainians were willing perpetrators. This uncomfortable truth is hidden from students because it does not fit into the dominant heroic or victimhood narrative. However, responsibility can only be cultivated through the acknowledgment of one’s own guilt.

Baldwin: You have spoken frequently on social media recently about the dangerous influence of and threats you’ve personally received by Ukrainian ultranationalists and Neo-Nazis. Tell us about that. What do you think will happen with this element as the war winds down eventually and ends? Are you safe from the threats?

Havryshko: I began receiving a violent pushback from radical nationalists more than ten years ago, when I first started writing about sexual violence committed by members of the OUN and UPA—both against their female counterparts and against civilian women as a form of punishment, terror and revenge.

At that time, the leadership of the academic institution in Lviv where I worked contacted the Security Service of Ukraine to report my “dangerous activities.” The entire situation was absurd and grotesque, because I was being harassed not just by fringe far-right groups, but also by professors holding high academic positions. That was also the first time I experienced antisemitic verbal attacks that invoked a common trope about the alleged disloyalty of Jews to the Ukrainian national project.

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, these attacks became more frequent. The attackers grew more aggressive, believing that by doing so they were “defending Ukraine.” In September 2023, amid the scandal surrounding Yaroslav Hunka, a former member of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division who was given standing ovations in Canadian parliament, one of Ukraine’s largest museums—the Museum of the History of Kyiv—opened a photo exhibition organized by Azov’s 3rd Assault Brigade.

The exhibit included several photos of soldiers from the Waffen-SS Galicia Division. None of the Ukrainian historians, journalists, human rights activists, cultural figures or politicians who visited the exhibition publicly commented on the inappropriateness of this kind of analogy, where active-duty members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were essentially equating themselves with Nazi collaborators, involved in war crimes in Poland and Slovakia.

I wrote a short critical social media post about this. In response, far-right —including members of the Azov movement—launched a campaign of harassment against me. This included media publications, YouTube programs, and incitement of violence against me on the social media pages of prominent leaders of far-right groups and military units.

Students from Ivan Franko National University of Lviv even wrote a letter to the Minister of Education and Science demanding that “measures be taken” against me. I was relieved that I wasn’t in Ukraine at the time, because I honestly cannot imagine what might have happened to me.

At the same time, I began to pay closer attention to Nazi apologism in Ukraine’s wartime society—particularly within the military. And the more I study this phenomenon, the more shocked I am by its scale—and the more death and rape threats I receive from various far-right groups.

What is especially alarming is that I now receive threats not only from Ukrainian neo-Nazis, but also from foreign ones who are fighting on Ukraine’s side and are part of far-right military units such as the 3rd Assault Brigade, Karpatska Sich, Kraken, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and others.

One of those threatening me is an American neo-Nazi, antisemite, and convicted felon currently fighting in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is instrumentalizing far-right extremists from around the world due to a shortage of manpower. Their activities are often overseen by Military Intelligence, headed by [Kyrylo Oleksiiovych] Budanov. With that kind of backing, they feel—and in fact are—truly empowered. So I cannot realistically expect protection from the Ukrainian state.

To be honest, I am afraid to travel to Ukraine due to these ongoing threats, which are laced with antisemitic slurs and misogyny. What makes the fear even more real is that last year in my hometown of Lviv, Professor Iryna Farion was shot dead. She had openly criticized right-wing soldiers for using the Russian language.

Various far-right social media channels demonized her and openly incited violence against her. According to the police, some of these channels were followed by the suspected killer, who has been detained and is under investigation.

What saddens me the most is that some of my fellow scholars in Ukraine have also threatened me, incited far-right violence against me, and downplayed or completely disregarded my concerns for my safety and the safety of my child. I have repeatedly and publicly asked them to reconsider their aggressive rhetoric, but to no avail.

Baldwin: You have talked about how the Maidan events of 2014 marked a turning point in the influence of the ultranationalists in Ukraine. In an interview with Ondrej Belecik last December, you said “I’m convinced that the Maidan Revolution enabled ultranationalists to hijack memory politics in Ukraine. They started to impose an ultranationalist narrative. And from the beginning many people were actually not in favor of this.” Can you elaborate on this? How and why do you think this hijacking was allowed to happen?

Although people with a wide range of political views took part in the Maidan protests, nationalist groups—particularly those representing the Western Ukrainian strain of nationalism historically associated with the OUN and UPA—played a significant role.

The Maidan gained enormous popularity in Western Ukraine, where then-President Viktor Yanukovych was widely perceived as overtly pro-Russian and as someone obstructing Ukraine’s movement toward the West. In contrast, in the East and South of the country, the majority of the population supported Yanukovych and held a critical view of the Maidan, which partly explains the bloody civil unrest in Donbass that started in spring 2014, that was instrumentalized by Russia.

Given that many Maidan participants were from Western Ukraine, they used specific historical analogies to legitimize their activities. In particular, they glorified Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevych, and used the symbols of the OUN and UPA.

In doing so, they created a symbolic connection between themselves and members of the nationalist underground through the idea of a shared struggle against a “common enemy”—Moscow. It was the radical Ukrainian nationalists from Right Sector and Patriot of Ukraine (the forerunner of Azov) who ultimately determined the fate of the Maidan by taking up arms and resorting to violence.

The victory of the Maidan thus marked the triumph of an ethnonationalist project, rather than an inclusive national one—as many Ukrainians and some Western scholars, including Americans, tried to portray it. With each passing year, this romanticized version of the Maidan is increasingly challenged by a harsher reality—one marked by attacks on the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians and on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate.

In this reality, the memory of millions of Ukrainians who fought against the Nazis as part of the Red Army and Soviet partisan units is being erased, and in their place stand a few dozen members of the OUN and UPA, who were not only a regional phenomenon but also collaborators with the Nazis and participants in their crimes.

In this post-Maidan reality, the memory wars have even reached major cultural figures such as Mikhail Bulgakov, Isaac Babel, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky — who have been targeted for their alleged pro-Russian positions.

Baldwin: In a May 2022 interview with Regina Muhlhauser, you discussed the role of sexual violence in the Russian-Ukrainian war. You talked about sexual violence against Ukrainian refugees who’d fled the war and were in the border countries. Can you tell us about that?

In early March 2022, shortly after the start of Russian full-scale invasion, I fled Ukraine with my 9-year-old son. We spent several hours on the Polish side of the border, waiting for our friend who was supposed to drive us both to Warsaw. During that time, I observed how some Polish men offered shelter exclusively to young women. It was unsettling.

Later, my friend—who was working with Ukrainian refugees at the border and in shelters—confirmed my suspicions. She said there was a noticeable group of men who clearly preferred to help young women, likely expecting sexual favors in return. Soon after, more and more stories began to emerge about the sexual harassment and exploitation of these vulnerable women. This issue was reflected in the reports of different human rights organizations.

Feminist friends of mine in Switzerland and Germany also confirmed that the number of Ukrainian refugees involved in prostitution in their countries is growing—particularly in street prostitution, where the most vulnerable women tend to end up. This once again proves that prostitution often becomes a “choice without a choice” for traumatized and vulnerable women. In some cases, we may be talking about sex trafficking and sexual slavery.

Baldwin: What kinds of sexual violence are we seeing in this war? Does it seem to be characterized mostly by discrete incidents on both sides or is there any evidence that it is ordered at the top levels as a policy on either side?

Sexual violence has emerged as a recurrent and disturbing phenomenon in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. While its presence has been documented since 2014, it has gained greater visibility and public attention following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. However, the true scope and prevalence of this violence remain largely unknown due to several structural and political constraints.

One of the most significant limitations is the lack of access to approximately 20% of Ukrainian territory currently under Russian occupation, which prevents both systematic documentation and independent research.

Although isolated cases were reported during the early phases of the conflict, the escalation of sexual violence in recent years has drawn the attention of human rights organizations, law enforcement bodies, the media, and political actors. This is partly due to the expansion of occupied territories, which has created more opportunities for abuses, and partly due to the increasing use of sexual violence as a tool within the broader framework of information warfare.

Both Ukraine and Russia have used the issue to accuse each other of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, which in turn complicates the work of researchers and limits open access to reliable, depoliticized data.

As a feminist researcher, I rely primarily on the testimonies of survivors. A growing number of individuals have come forward to share their experiences with organizations such as the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and various media outlets.

Their accounts describe a range of sexualized abuses perpetrated by Russian military personnel, including rape, threats of rape, forced nudity, genital beatings and mutilation, castration, and forced witnessing of sexual violence. Victims include individuals of all sexes, genders, and ages, including minors.

Based on patterns identified in survivors’ testimonies and broader historical parallels with other armed conflicts, it is plausible to hypothesize that a significant proportion of victims are men. This assumption is grounded in the fact that men constitute the majority of detainees—both military and civilian—held in places of confinement in Russia and in the territories of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Studies of Russian carceral institutions point to a longstanding culture of sexualized hazing practices, where sexual violence is routinely employed to assert dominance, maintain prison hierarchies, and inflict torture. War, in this context, amplifies and legitimizes such practices.

Sexual violence in captivity thus becomes a mechanism of domination, humiliation, coercion, information extraction, and punishment. These functions are clearly discernible in the narratives of former Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian detainees. The consistency and repetition of such abuses strongly suggest that sexual violence is not incidental or opportunistic, but rather instrumental for the Russian military.

Importantly, recognizing sexual violence as a weapon of war does not require the existence of formal written orders. Rather, it necessitates attention to recurring patterns, institutional mechanisms, the nature and purpose of the violence, and the response (or absence thereof) from the chain of command.

To date, no known prosecutions have been initiated by the Russian state against its own soldiers for sexual violence committed against Ukrainians—despite multiple documented cases. One high-profile instance involved a video circulated via Russian Telegram channels, depicting the castration and subsequent execution of a Ukrainian serviceman.

The main suspect was identified by open-source investigators from Bellingcat, but there has been no indication of an official investigation by Russian authorities. The absence of accountability serves as both an implicit endorsement and a mechanism of encouragement, thus reinforcing the use of sexual violence for political and military objectives.

Another salient indicator of the political nature of wartime sexual violence is the selection of victims. Testimonies indicate that women targeted by Russian forces are often connected to men serving in Ukrainian governmental, military, or security institutions—such as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters. The female body, in this context, becomes a site of symbolic warfare.

The capture and violation of these women is intended not only to inflict individual trauma but also to send a collective message to their male relatives, undermining morale, asserting dominance, and emasculating the perceived enemy. In such cases, sexual violence serves a strategic function and should be analyzed not merely as individual criminal behavior, but as a form of politically motivated violence embedded within a broader war apparatus.

[With respect to the use of sexual violence by Ukrainian forces], according to the 2017 Report of the Eastern-Ukrainian Centre for Civic Initiatives, sexual violence was used in Donbas by different actors, including the Ukrainian Armed Forces and its satellites – volunteer battalions. This sexual violence took place primarily in detention facilities and checkpoints. One of the most infamous in this regard was the Tornado Battalion.

A couple of members of it were charged with sexual violence, but after 2022, they were released from prison and sent to the frontline. After 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported instances of sexual violence against Russian POWS. In particular, one of them was threatened with castration on camera. Also, recently Russia’s representative in the U.N. reported cases of rape allegedly committed by Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk Region. 

Baldwin: Not long after the war started, I spoke to several experts on Russia/Ukraine and the phenomenon known as “the narcissism of small differences” was pointed out to me. It’s based on an observation originally made by Sigmund Freud and elaborated on by a few modern war reporters.

It basically says that a war between two peoples who are very similar can be the most vicious – that small differences that are perceived as representing even minor advantages are magnified and take on a significance that can be difficult for outsiders to understand. Do you think that is true in this conflict?

This is a very interesting theory, as Ukrainians and Russians share a common history, culture, and, to some extent, language — since a significant portion of Ukrainians speak Russian. Ukrainians and Russians also share a common history of crimes, such as the mass rapes of German women in 1945, the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, and war crimes in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989.

However, a distinctive feature of Ukrainian-Russian relations is the lack of symmetry. Russian political elites, both during the times of the Russian Empire and the USSR, viewed Ukrainians as “younger brothers”—naive, reckless, in need of guidance and instruction. This colonial superiority is one of the underlying reasons behind Russia’s current aggression against Ukraine.

The desire of Ukrainian political elites to “leave the family”—that is, to break away from Russia and drift toward the West—is perceived by the Kremlin as a form of rebellion and ingratitude, as if it were a betrayal by a loved one. As a result, Russians act like a patriarch in a hierarchical family, who believes he has the right to use violence against subordinate relatives in order to “save” them and “bring them back to the right path.”

Thus, the Russian-Ukrainian war resembles domestic abuse, where the abuser desperately tries to preserve his power and privileges over other family members. The vulnerability and partial dependence of these members on the patriarch—who seeks to discipline them through force—requires the intervention of external actors.

These actors are meant to help the victim escape from an abusive and toxic relationship and begin a new life. The tragedy of the situation lies in the fact that sometimes the rescuers try to take advantage of the vulnerable victim, which causes them to fall into a new trap of toxic and exploitative relationships.

The views expressed in this interview may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

YouTube link here.

At the time of this discussion, Buchanan had just published his book, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

Given that we’re in 2025, it’s very interesting to listen to this prescient conversation. It’s also good to see two people have a civil debate where they disagree on some things but are also able to discover where they have common ground.

Russia Matters, 4/18/25

1. Marco Rubio warned on April 18 the U.S. will walk away from efforts to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress in the next several days, according to Reuters and WP. Trump then said Rubio was “right in saying” that the U.S. wants to see the Russia-Ukraine war come to an end. Asked how to identify how many days that would be, Trump said, “No specific numbers of days, but quickly, we want to get it done,” according to NBC. On the prior day, Rubio and other U.S. officials¹ attended a meeting with European leaders in Paris where they outline of terms to end the fighting and ease sanctions on Moscow in the event of a lasting ceasefire, according to Bloomberg. The proposal would effectively freeze the war, with Ukrainian territories now occupied by Russia remaining under Moscow’s control while Kyiv’s aspirations of joining NATO would also be off the table, according to this news agency. Rubio said he spoke with Sergei Lavrov to brief him on elements of the U.S. peace framework and that the Europeans had a central role to play in any peace pact, especially as their sanctions on Russia would likely need to be lifted to secure an accord, according to Reuters. Speaking on April 15 Trump’s special envoy Witkoff said Putin is open to a “permanent peace” deal with Ukraine and claimed the peace deal currently under discussion involves “five territories,” referring to Ukrainian regions currently occupied by Russian forces. In response to Witkoff’s comments, Zelensky said that recognizing any of Ukraine’s occupied territories as Russian is a “red line” for Kyiv.
2. Two Russian ballistic missiles struck Ukraine’s city of Sumy on Palm Sunday, killing 36 and injuring over 119. Donald Trump called the strike “horrible,” but noted that he was told Russia “made a mistake” and his administration told U.S. allies it couldn’t sign a G7 draft statement denouncing the April 13 attack. Trump also blamed Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky² for the war,³ which he claimed to have left millions dead.⁴ For his part, Zelenskyy rejected Trump’s accusations and urged the U.S. leader to visit Ukraine and see the devastation caused by Russia himself. Russia’s Sergei Lavrov admitted to the strike, but claimed that it was targeting a gathering of Ukrainian military. Ukrainian authorities insisted Russian forces targeted civilians in the strike on Sumy, but An Ukrainian soldier described to WP how he was sitting at a military medal ceremony in a university building basement Sunday when two Russian ballistic missiles tore through the surrounding area in Sumy. Ukrainian government also fired Volodymyr Artiukh from the post of the Sumy Oblast governor following the strikes.⁵
3. Russia gained 142 square miles of Ukraine’s territory (about 1 1/2 Nantucket islands) in the past month, and its overall pace of advance has picked back up this week, according to the April 16 issue of the Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. This week’s gain of 50 square miles is nearly double the prior week’s advance of 29 square miles, according to the card. As of April 16 Russian forces occupied 112,581 square km (43,468 square miles), which constituted 18.65% of Ukraine’s territory and which is roughly equivalent to the state of Ohio, according to Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group’s map.
4. Russia’s ruble has surged to become the best performing global currency, posting this year’s strongest gains against the dollar to outpace even the traditional safe haven of gold according to Bloomberg. The ruble has strengthened 38% versus the dollar on the over-the-counter market since the beginning of this year, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. The Russian ruble equaled 0.01216 U.S. dollars on April 14, 2025, appreciating by 3% since the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, according to RM’s calculations.
5. Americans are now split on whether Russia is an ‘enemy,’ according to Pew.

By Petr Lavrenin, RT, 4/1/25

Petr Lavrenin, an Odessa-born political journalist and expert on Ukraine and the former Soviet Union

On the first day of April in 2022, shocking videos began circulating on Ukrainian social media, showing the streets of Bucha, a town in Kiev region, strewn with dead bodies.  The “Bucha massacre” quickly became one of the most widely discussed and controversial chapters of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. Western media immediately accused the Russian army of mass killings, while Vladimir Zelensky declared that these acts were not only war crimes but a genocide against his country’s people.

However, a closer look at the situation raises numerous questions. An analysis of video footage, satellite images, and eyewitness accounts reveals significant inconsistencies that cast doubt on the official narrative adopted by Kiev and its Western allies. This article explores why it appears the so-called “Bucha massacre” has been fabricated.

What do we know

Bucha, with a population of 40,000 people, found itself on the front lines from the first days of the Ukraine conflict. To the north of Bucha lies the village of Gostomel, home to the strategically important Antonov Airport, where Russian paratroopers landed on the morning of February 24, 2022. This group soon joined the main Russian units advancing from Belarus.

In the days that followed, fierce battles broke out around Bucha as Russian troops attempted to establish a foothold in the town and push toward Irpin, a large suburb of Kiev. Nevertheless, the area remained under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) and territorial defense units.

Between March 3 and 5, Russian forces entered Bucha from the side of the village of Vorzel, setting up a base at a glass factory and along the southern outskirts of the city. From then on, Bucha became a transit point and rear base for Russian troops engaged in combat near Kiev.

On March 29, following a round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced a significant reduction in military activity around Kiev and Chernigov.

By March 30, Russian forces began withdrawing from Kiev Region due to the shifting priorities of the military operation.

However, just days after their retreat, shocking footage emerged that stunned the whole world.

When Ukrainian soldiers entered Bucha, international media outlets began publishing photo and video evidence of murdered civilians. Vladimir Zelensky and his team quickly accused Russian troops of committing mass murder, labeling it an act of genocide.

“This is genocide. The annihilation of an entire nation and people,” Zelensky declared on CBS’s Face the Nation. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitri Kuleba called on the G7 countries to impose immediate “new devastating sanctions” against Russia, including imposing a complete embargo on Russian oil, gas, and coal, closing ports to Russian vessels, and disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT system.

The Russian Foreign Ministry denied any involvement in civilian deaths. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that the images showed “signs of forgery” and manipulation.

From the beginning, the narrative surrounding the “Bucha massacre” was full of inconsistencies and peculiarities, many of which remain unclear to this day. 

Timing discrepancies

Among the key arguments that cast doubt on the Ukrainian narrative of mass killings in Bucha are the timing discrepancies.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has consistently stated that all Russian units had left Bucha by March 30, 2022.  This claim is supported by local authorities. On March 31, Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk recorded a video message confirming the withdrawal of Russian forces but did not mention any mass killings or bodies. In the background of the video, the streets appear clear, and there are no signs of corpses or destruction. At the same time, Ukrainian MPs and military personnel were in Bucha, yet none of them reported seeing dead bodies. Local residents did not mention any mass shootings either.

The first images of the bodies emerged only on April 1-2, a couple of days after Ukrainian military personnel and activists entered the city. This raises questions about the timing and circumstances surrounding their deaths: if Russian troops left Bucha on March 30, how could evidence of the killings have come to light only several days later?

Analysis of video footage from the scene further shows that many bodies appear too “fresh” to have been lying there for over a week. Forensic experts point out that signs of decomposition should have manifested much earlier if the deaths truly occurred in mid-March. Photos and videos provided by Ukrainian and Western media show signs (such as drying skin in certain areas) that suggest death likely took place just hours or a day before the images were captured.

Controversial satellite images and social media data 

On April 1, 2022, Maxar Technologies released satellite images dated March 19, allegedly showing bodies on Yablonskaya Street in Bucha. These images were cited by Ukrainian and Western media as key evidence of mass killings supposedly carried out by Russian forces.

However, these images are highly questionable. Independent researchers have noted that the images may have been manipulated or backdated.

Firstly, the March images from Maxar, published by The New York Times, are of very low quality compared to the February photos. This complicates analysis and raises suspicions of manipulation. The objects depicted in the images cannot be unequivocally identified as bodies, so claims about corpses that have been there for a long time rely solely on Western media reports and have not been independently verified. The images could have been altered or backdated to suggest that the bodies had been on the streets since March.

Secondly, the weather conditions captured in the videos do not match the meteorological data for the dates specified in Western media reports. This discrepancy indicates a possible mismatch in the timing of the recordings.

Thirdly, Maxar Technologies has close ties to US government structures, raising concerns about a potential bias and the use of its data for propaganda purposes.

Alexey Tokarev, who has a PhD in political science, and his team from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations conducted an analysis of media coverage, social media, and Telegram channels related to Bucha, and uncovered an intriguing pattern: there were no mentions of bodies on Yablonskaya Street prior to April 1. While there were reports of destruction, prisoners, and fighting, there was no information regarding mass killings.

“If we are to believe the Western media, the town has been full of corpses since April 1, and according to a leading American newspaper, even earlier – since March 11. So why is it that in a video captured by the Ukrainian police on April 2, which features 14 civilians, no one mentions any bodies or mass executions? The nearly eight-minute-long video shows nine different locations in the small town, but we don’t see a single corpse,” Tokarev says.

Discrepancies in visual evidence

The videos and photographs released by the Ukrainian side reveal numerous inconsistencies that suggest a possible staging. For instance, in one case, we see Ukrainian soldiers moving bodies between takes, while in another video, a “corpse’s” hand noticeably twitches. These signs indicate that the individuals depicted were not actually dead.

The Investigative Committee of Russia reported that the bodies did not display signs of having been outside for an extended period – there were no corpse marks and uncoagulated blood in wounds – casting doubt on the official Ukrainian narrative. Experts also noted the absence of shrapnel or explosive damage near the bodies, further contradicting claims of mass shootings.

Additionally, many victims, judging by photos, wore white armbands – a symbol typically associated with pro-Russian civilians. This suggests that Ukrainian forces might have targeted individuals suspected of “collaboration”, i.e., cooperating with Russian troops, and then accused the other side of the murders.

Moreover, in the initial days following the withdrawal of Russian troops from Bucha, a curfew was imposed, restricting locals from venturing into the streets. This created suitable conditions for the potential fabrication of events.

Eyewitness accounts and questionable sources

Adrien Bocquet, a French volunteer and journalist who was in Kiev Region during intense fighting, claimed that he personally witnessed Ukrainian forces staging mass killings in Bucha.

He recounted seeing bodies being brought into the city and arranged on the streets to create the impression of “mass deaths”. “When we drove into Bucha, I was in the passenger seat. As we passed through the city, I saw bodies lying on the roadside, and right before my eyes, people were unloading corpses from trucks and placing them next to those already on the ground to amplify the effect of mass casualties,” he said.

“One of the volunteers who had been there the day before – let me emphasize that this is not something I observed myself, but what I heard from another volunteer – told me he saw refrigerated trucks arriving in Bucha from other cities in Ukraine, unloading bodies and lining them up. From this, I realized that these were staged incidents,” he stated.

According to Bocquet, volunteers were prohibited from taking photos or videos.

Interestingly, in June 2022, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine stated that many claims made by former Ombudsman for Human Rights in Ukraine Lyudmila Denisova, including those related to the events in Bucha, were not accurate. “Law enforcement officials tried to carry out their own investigation. They went through all medical reports, police statements, and data on the deceased, attempting to find cases (…). However, all this work proved futile,” reported the news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda.

Russian military correspondents, including Aleksandr Kots, have also referred to the so-called Bucha massacre as fake.  Kots, who visited Bucha in February and March 2022, said “It’s not hard to verify what I’m saying. A forensic examination would determine the time of death of those poor people and align it with NATO’s objective monitoring data, which clearly indicates when Russian troops withdrew. But that’s if you’re looking for the truth. And who in the West wants that?”

Motives and geopolitical context

The story of the Bucha massacre emerged at a time when both the Ukrainian and Russian sides, albeit with varying degrees of optimism, were reporting progress in ceasefire negotiations.

“The Ukrainian side has become more realistic regarding issues related to Ukraine’s neutral and non-nuclear status, but the draft agreement is not ready for top-level discussions,” said Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation and an aide to the President of Russia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian negotiator David Arahamiya noted that the document was ready, and the two presidents could meet and discuss it. 

However, following reports of the “Bucha massacre,” Zelensky withdrew from the peace talks.

The incident in Bucha became a pivotal moment that not only derailed peace negotiations in Istanbul but also intensified Russia’s diplomatic isolation in the West, led to the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats and tighter sanctions, and resulted in Ukraine receiving additional military aid from NATO states. 

Without presenting sufficient evidence, Western media spread the narrative of the “atrocities” committed by Russian forces. This suggests that the events in Bucha may have been used as a propaganda tool.

To date, no independent investigation has confirmed the accuracy of Ukraine’s accounts. Additionally, a complete list of casualties and the circumstances surrounding their deaths has yet to be made public.

***

Analyzing timing discrepancies, satellite images, video footage, eyewitness accounts, and Ukraine’s motives suggests that the events in Bucha may have been fabricated or politically exploited.

Despite the extensive media coverage of the “Bucha massacre,” Ukraine’s official narrative raises many questions and demands an independent inquiry. Ukraine has failed to conduct a thorough investigation or provide any coherent explanation as to why Russian soldiers would kill innocent civilians. The argument of Russia’s deep-seated hatred and brutality towards Ukrainians simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, since no similar tragedies have been documented during the course of the conflict. Instead, the “massacre” has become part of a media campaign aimed at dehumanizing Russian soldiers and portraying them as occupiers.

Bucha stands as one of the key propaganda symbols in the anti-Russia campaign. However, a closer examination of the evidence reveals numerous unanswered questions that officials prefer to avoid. An independent investigation could shed light on the true circumstances, but given the ongoing information war, it is unlikely to happen soon.