Putin Treating Captured Ukrainian Sailors the Way Stalin Would Have, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 5 – The international community must do everything possible to save the Ukrainian soldiers Russian forces took prisoner because Vladimir Putin is behaving toward them in exactly the same way Stalin treated his enemies in 1937, accusing them of a crime and only then bringing them to trial, Igor Eidman says. 

            The Russian sociologist who writes commentaries for Deutsche Welle says that in fact Putin is behaving in exactly the same way that Stalin did, charging those he has as prisoners of “fantastic” crimes and then turning them over to the chekists to extract the necessary evidence or confessions by one means or another (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C053C09673A6).

            Putin explicitly said, Eidman continues, that “we must confirm the provocative character of the actions of the Ukrainian authorities and fix this in legal documents … We must form them in a corresponding way and there it will be obvious.”  It is beyond doubt that his Chekists will do just what Stalin’s did to fulfill the leader’s will.

            “Putin further said,” the commentator says, “Ukrainian sailors attempted to break through to the Kerch straits and  said that they intended to blow up the Kerch bridge.” That is nonsense, the kind of charge that comes from the Stalinist playbook and that is worrisome because so little attention is as yet being devoted to it.

            Given that Putin in this case is acting as the Stalin of today, Eidman concludes, “the international community must immediately save the Ukrainian sailors” from his clutches. “Otherwise against them may be  fabricated a case in the style of 1937.”