About the glorification of Nazism

General I love you died shortly after the liberation of Kyiv, as a result of an injury he sustained in an ambush carried out by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators from the OUN – Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. In 1944, he was buried in one of Kyiv's central parks, which he had liberated, and a monument was erected over his grave with the inscription: "To General Vatutin of the Ukrainian people."

The general was deservedly considered a hero; flowers from the people of Kyiv always lay at the monument.

And now, in our days, in the year marking the 80th anniversary of Kyiv's liberation, the monument to Vatutin was demolished. With this demolition, the Kyiv authorities also desecrated his grave.

Monuments are demolished

The destruction of monuments to the soldiers of the Red Army, who liberated Ukraine and Europe from fascism, is going on all over Ukraine. In some cities, such as Chernivtsi, Rivne and many others, they are demolished, and in some places they are blown up, as was done, for example, in Mykolaiv.

In addition, many other monuments are demolished: monuments to the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, about the authors Aleksandr Ostrovsky and Maksim Gorky, the test pilot Valery Chkalov and many others.

To give everything and all things new names

Furthermore, in recent years there has been a massive campaign to rename towns, villages, streets and squares in Ukraine.

Since euromaidan-the coup d'état in Ukraine in February 2014 has renamed more than 1000 settlements and more than 50 streets.

Last year, 237 streets, squares, avenues and boulevards were renamed.

In Kyiv alone, 237 streets, squares, avenues and boulevards were renamed last year, as the city's authorities, led by mayor/city councilor Vitaly Klitschko, proudly report. The same city government, which since 2014 when Klitschko first became a city council leader in the capital Kyiv with three million inhabitants and persistent traffic jams on the main roads – has not managed to build a single new metro station, not a single new multi-level transport hub, not a single new medical center, not a single new campus, not a single recycling facility, and so on.

Where did it come from, this insistent desire to rename anything and everything? Is it because a large number of local residents have wanted it? Because they were suddenly no longer satisfied with the names of towns and streets where they themselves, their parents and sometimes also grandparents were born and raised? Nothing of the sort. Not a single poll was conducted among the local residents on these matters, no one asked them for their opinion.

In honor of Nazi collaborators and neo-Nazis.

On the contrary, in the few cases where opinion polls were conducted, they almost always showed people's overwhelming disagreement with the name changes. For example, in the case of the renaming of the regional center Kirovograd, which was named so almost 90 years earlier in honor of the famous Soviet statesman Sergei Kirov. There, the absolute majority of the city's population – 82 percent – reported that they did not support the decision that the city should be called Kropyvnytskyi. Only 14 percent thought it was a good idea.

But neither in this case nor in any of the many other cases there monumentwere demolished and streets renamed, the authorities did not care at all about the citizens' opinions.

A Ukrainian fascist

Why then is all this happening? The answer to that question becomes clearer if you look more closely at which new names and monuments are now being erected.

General Vatutin's Avenue, named after him who contributed to Kyiv's liberation from Nazismn, discussed at the beginning of the article, has been renamed Roman Shukhevich Avenue, after a Ukrainian fascist. At the time of Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, Shukhevich served as a member of the German Nachtigall Battalion, a subdivision of the Abwehr (German Army Wehrmacht's military intelligence), which consisted of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators.

That which in Kyiv previously was Moscow avenue, has been renamed Stepan Bandera#s avenue – after another Ukrainian Nazi collaborator, head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, OUN, who during World War II collaborated with the German Nazis and their genocidal massacres of the Polish and Jewish population.

In cities across Ukraine, many monuments have now been erected to Bandera, and streets are named in his honor.

Druzhby Narodov's boulevard in Kyiv has been renamed Mykola Mikhnovskyj's boulevard. Mikhnovskyj was one of the main ideologues of Ukrainian nationalism and the originator of the chauvinistic slogan "Ukraine for Ukrainians!".

Notorious Nazi emblem

And the street that used to be named after Malinovsky, the Ukrainian marshal and Soviet military leader who was one of the leaders of the Red Army during the war against Nazism, has been renamed the 'Street of Heroes of the Azov Battalion'. Azov-battalion is a neo-fascist paramilitary formation that is now an official part of the Ukrainian army. The battalion's emblem is the 'wolfsangel', an infamous Nazi emblem that was particularly used by units of the Nazi SS troops. For those who did not know, or perhaps have forgotten, let me remind you that even the US Congress has designated Azov as a neo-Nazi terrorist group.

About the same time as then the monument to General I love you was demolished in Kyiv, the XNUMXth Separate Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was officially renamed Edelweiss. During World War II, 'Edelweiss' was the name of the Nazi Army Wehrmacht's XNUMXst Mountain Infantry Division. The Nazi division Edelweiss played a major role in the deportation of Jews, the execution of prisoners of war and in punitive actions against the partisans in Yugoslavia, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Greece. Many of the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine today wear symbols – for example, the death's head – which are practically indistinguishable from the emblems of the SS division Totenkopf and other Nazi units – and not only the soldiers, but also the supreme military commander.

Marx and Engels

The current government of Ukraine is destroying everything that can be somehow associated with Russia, of which most of Ukraine was a part for hundreds of years – even monuments and streets named in honor of world-renowned writers – such as Lev Tolstoy. It also destroys everything related to the 70-year Soviet period of Ukraine's history, and to socialism and left-wing ideology in general. For example, have streets named after Karl Marx and Friedrich English given new names; monuments to them have been demolished. Socialist and communist symbols – from the red flag to the performance of the "Internationale" – are prohibited. Likewise, all left-wing parties are banned in Ukraine, including the party Left-wing Unity – For New Socialism (as the undersigned leader).

Socialism and communism is banned, left-wing activists are persecuted and imprisoned, and neo-Nazism is becoming an element of the state's political orientering and is increasingly the dominant ideology.

12 billion

This total war by the Ukrainian authorities against all public symbols, monuments and names that associate with Russia, the October Revolution and Soviethistory, or to leftist ideology, requires a lot of money.

The cost of just one address plate with a new one street name and house number is, according to the Kyiv authorities, at least 1000 Ukrainian hryvnia (approx. NOK 280). This can be multiplied by dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of buildings on the same street. And this again has to be multiplied by the thousands of streets that get new names. Let me also remind you of more than a thousand rechristened byare and villages.

Many among the military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carry today symbolis – for example death's headt – which practically does not differ from the emblems of the SS division Skull and other Nazi entities.

But the cost of the new address and number plates is only a small part of the huge cost of this right-wing campaign. There are many more components in the picture. All institutions and businesses must change their documents, order new seals and stamps, update their signs at the entrance and so on. All over Ukraine we need new signs on the roads, at the entrances to towns and various residential areas as well as for streets and roads. Many institutions – not only in the renamed cities, but across the country – need to be equipped with new maps and atlases.

The city of Zjdanov's name change to Mariupol alone, for example, cost around 24 million euros.

The city of Zjdanov's name change to Mariupol alone, for example, cost around 24 million euros. According to the most conservative estimates, the massive wave of street renaming and the demolition of monuments across the country has already cost around NOK 12 billion!

And this is in the most impoverished country in Europe, and even during an ongoing war! This in a country that now has an urgent need for financial assistance, and where 60 per cent of this year's state budget income comes from foreign funds, mainly from the EU and the USA.

This means that money from European and American taxpayers is now being used, among other things, for a mass campaign to change the names of Ukraine's streets and squares in honor of Nazi collaborators and neo-Nazis.

I doubt that many of the citizens of the 'donor countries' would agree with this. But no one seems to ask what they think – just as Ukraine's citizens are not asked either.

Goldarb is a Ukrainian opposition politician and leader of the party Ukraine's Left Forces Unity – For a New Socialism. The pictures have been sent to us by him. Several of his articles on the situation in the country have recently been published in various European media.
For example https://www.friedman.it/ucraina-oltre-alla-guerra-ce-anche-il-rischio-di-una-deriva-autoritaria/ og https://rebelion.org/como-se-esta-destruyendo-la-libertad-de-expresion-en-ucrania/