I’m going to come back to this, because an official Russian state information agency has published a new overview laying out the rationale for the attack on Ukraine and the objectives to be achieved.
https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1510910740261134338
Direct quotes:
“Ukraine must pay for its guilt towards Russia. It must be treated as an enemy, and therefore may develop only in dependency to Russia. No ‘Marshall plan’ may happen. No ‘neutrality’ either ideological or practical. … The history has proven: Ukraine may not exist as a national state. Any attempt to create it leads to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construct. … De-banderisation is not enough… Denazification of Ukraine must be De-Europisation of it.”
“De-banderisation” is a reference to Stepan Bandera, an enormously controversial figure in 20th century Ukrainian history. In this context, it is a double reference — both to Bandera’s efforts in the 1950s to fight Soviet influence over Ukraine, as well as to his collaboration with Nazi Germany and his ultra-nationalist and anti-semitic viewpoints. In other words, it’s saying that any assertion of Ukrainian independence from Russia is inextricably tied up with Nazism, and that the two beliefs cannot be separated. This is delusional nonsense, of course, but that’s the Russian argument.
So that tells you what the article is actually saying with this statement: “Nazis [i.e. anyone who stands against Russia] who took weapons, must be killed in numbers as much as possible. … Not just the elites, the majority of the people are guilty, they are passive Nazis, Nazi enablers. They supported these elites and must be punished.”
Anyone who opposes Russia’s agenda for Ukraine is a Nazi and must be killed. Period.
This is the endgame — the slaughter of Ukrainians and the destruction of Ukraine as an independent nation. If you don’t believe my quotes, you can get the article and read it yourself, and see the unedited words of the Russian government justifying itself to the Russian people. This is not a fringe outlet, either — RIA is a major government news service. This is 100% the official voice of the Russian state.
And you won’t find this article on any of your Putin-loving networks.