Besides Ukraine, Russia Must ‘De-Nazify’ Six More Countries, Moscow Deputy Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 21 -- Last week, Sergey Savostyanov, a KPRF deputy in the Moscow city duma, said that after Ukraine, Russia must “de-Nazify” six additional countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova and Kazakhstan, an “enemies” or target list that appears to reflect more than just his personal opinion.

            Savostyanov’s remark (ostro.org/general/society/news/631068/) might be dismissed as the hyperbolic expression of one individual in the overheated atmosphere of Russia today, but it is clearly more than that judging from the attention it has now been given by Vladimir Vinokurov, a professor at the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy.

            In a lengthy article for Novoye voennoye obozreniye, the scholar says that if one considers the pasts of these countries and their current situation, one is forced to conclude that “the chauvinist and nationalist trash which set these countries apart in the past has not disappeared up to now” (nvo.ng.ru/history/2022-04-21/1_1186_memory.html).

            And because the West won’t do anything about this, Vinokurov says, it has been left to Russia to de-Nazify these countries lest they spread their poison across the world once again. He says that Putin’s decision to recognize the LNR and DNR and to launch his “special military operation” allows one to hope that “this time,” there will be no recrudescence of Nazism.

            Indeed, he concludes, “today it is Russia that has the mission to block someone else’s global scenario and thus save humanity from the repetition of a bloody world war.”