Behavior of Russian Occupiers in Ukraine Recalls ‘Dark Times of Stalin Repressions,’ Nevzlin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – Putin’s war in Ukraine has become not only the occasion for increasing repression there and in Russia itself but also a model for that repression, with the behavior of Russian officials in occupied portions of Ukraine increasingly the model for what the Putin regime is doing at home.

            Indeed, just as Putin’s war against Chechnya at the start of his reign became the occasion and model for his behavior in Russia as a whole, a development that grew into the Chechenization of Russia, so too his war against Ukraine is having a similar effect with the tactics his minions use there bleeding back into the Russian Federation.

            That conclusion is suggested by Russian commentator Leonid Nevzlin in his discussion (t.me/leonidnevzlin/2031of the new OSCE mission on the treatment of Ukrainians by the Russian occupiers (osce.usmission.gov/joint-statement-on-the-report-of-the-moscow-mechanism-to-address-the-arbitrary-detention-of-ukrainian-civilians-by-the-russian-federation/).

            To the extent that is true, those Russian officials are involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity; and the future of Russia under Putin is bleak because, as Nevzlin puts it, “the actions of the occupiers recall the dark times of Stalinist repressions” in the Soviet Union and thus presage an equally dark future as long as Putin and his minions remain in power.