In two days, on the 9th of May, Russians throughout the world and others who commemorate the defeat of fascism in 1945 will celebrate Victory Day.
However, Victory Day has been effectively banned in Ukraine, a former Soviet Republic that once celebrated on the 9th of May along with Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Serbia and others.
READ MORE: Here’s why Victory Day on the 9th of May is a deeply important occasion for Russians
Russia’s long history of being invaded and occupied by hostile powers has given modern Russians a sense of purpose in respect of peace that many other nations lack. Russia’s history has been one of struggle against military, political and religious oppression. The tale is ultimately one of resilience against tremendous odds.
READ MORE: Here’s why Russia doesn’t want to fight the United States in Syria
An audience at a taping of a Russian debate show learned that free speech isn’t always without its cuts and bruises. During a debate on Russia’s role in The Great Patriotic War and how it allowed for the liberation of Europe, a far-right Polish commentator Tomasz Maciejczuk said that Russian journalist Ruslan Ostashko’s ancestors were ‘red fascists’.
Because Russians sacrificed over 20 million people to defeat fascism, calling any Russian a fascist is a grave insult. Maciejczuk is a well know provocateur and used the epithet to intentionally inflame the debate.
In recent years, Russian cities and increasingly, cities around the globe have held a march of The Immortal Regiment on the 9th of May.
The Immortal Regiment consists of people of all ages carrying photos of loved ones and comrades who fought in, died in and in some cases lived through the Great Patriotic War, as the Second World War is called in Russia.
It is a sombre and deeply moving event as no one in Russia and for that matter hardly any Russians anywhere in the world were not related to someone or knew someone who was in the war.
Cities throughout Russia and the wider former Soviet Union are preparing for the 9th of May celebrations of Victory Day.
Many Russians are astonished that individuals in the United States and much of Europe know so little about the most important non-religious holiday in Russia and several other countries.
On the 9th of May, Russia received news of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, thus ending The Great Patriotic War/World War II in Europe.
A recent piece in The Duran discussed why Russians are averse to war due to the experience of the 1940s,
If one wants to know why the modern Russian state and the Russian people are so averse to war, just take a look and the following charts.
While the rest of the world has more important things to do, a failed British politician and self-confessed former drug addict called Louise Mensch has been doing the rounds in the US spouting Russophobic conspiracy theories that would even make the folks at CNN and Washington Post, cringe with embarrassment.
Fascism is the wicked ideology that brought the world closer to collapse than any other in modern history. The blood of nearly 30 million Soviet soldiers is a testament to this harrowing struggle. The decades of peace that ensued in Europe and the Soviet Union after the 9th of May 1945, stands as a vindication of the anti-fascist post-war policies instigated by the USSR.
Post-Soviet Europe has seen the frightening trend of a re-emergence of fascism, something the Soviet government warned its western counterparts about as early as 1945.
A recent poll asked Russians to name their favourite political era since the Revolutions of 1917. Unsurprisingly, the Putin era and the Brezhnev era are nearly tied with 32% voting for the Putin era and 29% favouring the Brezhnev era. The only reason for the slight gap is that many young Russians cannot remember the Brezhnev era first hand.
Organisers of the Federal Cup for Tennis have been left embarrassed after the German victory celebration was ruined by a mix up in national anthems.
To understand why a seemingly innocent mistake became a highly sensitive incident, one must first understand the long history of Germany’s current national anthem.
