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Whipping old men. How veterans of the Great Patriotic War were bullied in the Ukraine for years (RIA Novosti, May 8, 2022 — in Russian)
First they threw him on the asphalt, then kicked him, broke his ribs. It happened back during the Maidan, in 2014. Pravyy Sektor militants beat 84-year-old veteran Pyotr Filonenko for calling for peace. Later he left for Russia. Other veterans who remember and went through the War are still forced to suffer bullying.
Grandparents and “non-grandchildren”
The struggle against historical memory and the glorification of Nazi idols bore fruit. It has become simply dangerous to publicly honor the heroes of the Great Patriotic War in the Ukraine.
Not a single celebration of the Victory Day in the Ukraine after the Euromaidan has occured without conflicts, clashes between the celebrants and the radicals. And—the most impossible thing to comprehend—without attacks on the elderly and war veterans.
Photo 1 — March of members of Ukrainian Nationalist organization C14 protesting against the Immortal Regiment event in Kiev
In fact, the bullying of war veterans in the Ukraine has started long before the Maidan. Their victory began to be questioned much earlier, and later open devaluation, denial and even condemnation of veterans for their fight against fascism became possible. To the point of retribution. Here are just a few typical incidents that occurred in different years in different cities of the Ukraine.
May 9, 2011. Lvov. Several dozen nationalists drove up to the Hill of Glory. They tried to disrupt the celebration by clashing with police officers, throwing plastic bottles at the police and attacking Great Patriotic War veterans, rocking and trying to overturn buses with veterans. Neo-Nazis spit in the faces of veterans, throwing stones, bottles and smoke grenades at them and the police, and defiantly burned copies of the Victory Banner.¹
And here’s a fragment of the interrogation of the Ukrainian Nazi Aleksandr Pugach, a member of the Azov group who was captured during the Special Military Operation in the Ukraine in 2022:
“In 2016, on the Victory Day, we were in Melitopol. We tore ribbons off veterans in the park. We walked around and looked at who had it and who didn’t… There were six of us. We tore ribbons off veterans, forced them to shout ‘Glory to the Ukraine!’ ”
Photo 2 — Neo-Nazi Aleksandr Pugach, member of the Azov group. A screenshot from a video posted on the Telegram channel Операция Z: Военкоры Русской Весны [Operation Z: War correspondents of the Russian Spring]
May 9, 2016. Dnepropetrovsk. The nationalists lined up in a human chain and did not allow people to go to the place of celebrations, and then attacked veterans and pensioners and began to beat them.
2017. Odessa. That year, the Ukraine has officially stopped celebrating the Defender of the Fatherland Day, but the veterans have organized the laying of flowers at the monument to the Unknown Sailor. The radicals tried to disrupt the ceremony. When the veterans arrived at the monument, the police received information that the territory was mined. Law enforcement officers arrived at the scene. They were followed by Pravyy Sektor fighters who began to threaten the old people and beat them. After some time, people in small groups were nevertheless allowed to pass to the memorial.
Photo 3 — Participant of Immortal Regiment event in Kiev
May 9, 2018. Kiev. In the center of the capital, where “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten” event (analogous to Immortal Regiment events) took place, people appeared with portraits of heroes of the computer game World of Warcraft instead of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.² Earlier, the nationalists entered the gathering place of the procession participants and staged a brawl, one of the participants had his nose broken.
Photo 4 — Flashmob participants hold portraits of heroes of the computer game World of Warcraft in Kiev, where Immortal Regiment event took place, 2018
No one has ever been punished for these and dozens of other similar crimes against veterans—heroes, fewer of whom remain with every passing year.
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