'Putin Has Tacitly Supported Racist Groups Throughout His 16 Years in Power'

 

The following commentary is in response to the From The G-Man exclusive Murder and Racism in Russia: Will Anti-Muslim Sentiment Place the U.S. on the Same Path?

 By Askold Krushelnycky

Murderous racist attacks have been happening in Russia for many years. Anyone that doesn’t have slavic features like people from the Caucuses or Central Asia is contemptuously called “chernej” - black - by these violent thugs. 

Although a few of these guys have ended up in jail because they’ve carried out their attacks so openly, most get away with, literally, murder, because they have been tacitly supported by Putin throughout his 16 years in power. His method to cultivate support & distract attention from his own massive kleptocracy (and the theft and corruption of his cronies) and which keeps Russia as “the shithole” that Chestyakov calls it has been the classic tactic of blaming everything on foreign enemies - the US, the EU, Ukraine. He has mocked or whipped up hatred for foreign values - respect for other peoples & their cultures, democracy, human rights, independent & truthful journalism.

Putin - although he regularly extols the Soviet Union’s fight against Hitler - has always exploited deep-rooted neo-fascist/Russian nationalist sentiments that they are a master race in the region with a sacred mission. When you live in a system where your leaders steal billions (Putin’s wealth estimated at $40-120 BILLION) while you live in relative poverty and you can be killed, imprisoned or otherwise persecuted for political opposition, it’s perhaps comforting to delude yourself that you are not helpless & insignificant but part of a great Russian “mission” to cure a sick world of its liberal & democratic ills.

Like the Soviet leaders before him, Putin tries to avoid the awkward historic fact that it was a treaty between Hitler and Stalin in 1939, where they agreed to invade Poland & carve up other parts of eastern & central Europe between them, that led to World War Two. Soviet and German armies held a joint victory parade after dismembering Poland. As Britain fought against Hitler, Stalin for nearly two years was sending essential wartime supplies to the Nazis until the minute they invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. 

In 1988/9, even before the USSR fell apart, western publications (including there UK Sunday Times, where I worked) were reporting in amazement about neo-fascist groups operating under the guise of sports and bodybuilding clubs.  Putin latched onto those sinister groups & encouraged them because he recognized that he could nurture and control their nastiness.  They grew into a huge, government-supported youth movement called “Nashi” which means “Ours” (as in Our folk, Our kind). I don’t know if the name “Nashi” was intended to resemble “Nazi” but the organization has taken a lot from the style book of the Nazi-era youth organization, the “Hitlerjugend”.  Its members are proud ultra-nationalists who have frequently been involved in racist attacks.  

Putin has also, more generally,  but diligently applied Hitler’s methods to how he rules Russia and conducts aggression. For anyone who has read any serious history books about WW2, the similarities between Hitler and Putin are breathtaking. At the same time he accuses anyone who opposes him of being fascist. 

Askold Krushelnycky is a British citizen and freelance journalist whose parents were refugees from Ukraine. He is the author of “An Orange Revolution – A Personal Journey Through Ukrainian History”, which was published in 2006 by Random House/Harvill Secker. He is working on a second book that will focus on the turbulent events in Ukraine since the fall of 2013, when mass demonstrations turned into revolution and, ultimately, the present conflict between Russia and Ukraine.