Ukraine's neo-nazi apologists help Putin prove his point

[Vympel]

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2 ... ck-him-up/

As Ukraine continues its battle against separatists, corruption and a collapsing economy, it has taken a dangerous step that could further tear the country apart: Ukraine’s parliament, the Supreme Rada, passed a draft law last month honoring organizations involved in mass ethnic cleansing during World War Two.

The draft law — which is now on President Petro Poroshenko’s desk awaiting his signature — recognizes a series of Ukrainian political and military organizations as “fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century” and bans the criticism of these groups and their members. (The bill doesn’t state the penalty for doing so.) Two of the groups honored — the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) — helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust while also killing close to 100,000 Polish civilians during World War Two.

The law is part of a recent trend of contemporary Ukrainian nationalism promoted by those on the extreme right to break with the country’s Communist past and emphasize Ukraine’s suffering under the Soviet regime. In addition to the moral problem of forbidding the criticism of Holocaust perpetrators, the law hinders Ukraine’s European ambitions — and validates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that the country is overrun by neo-Nazis.

The OUN was founded in 1929 as a revolutionary organization designed to liberate Ukraine from Soviet rule and create an independent Ukrainian state. Many OUN leaders were trained in Nazi Germany, and the group’s philosophy was influenced by Nazi racial theorists such as Alfred Rosenberg. OUN literature, for example, declared the need to “combat Jews as supporters of the Muscovite-Bolshevik regime… Death to the Muscovite-Jewish commune! Beat the commune, save Ukraine!”

The OUN fought both the Nazis and the Soviets, and many Ukrainian nationalists have argued that the OUN was primarily a national liberation movement. But while the OUN’s core goal may have been the creation of an independent Ukrainian state, along the way its members were responsible for terrible atrocities.

Starting with a pogrom in Lviv shortly after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, OUN militias — with the support of the Nazis — embarked on a killing spree in Western Ukraine that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Jews. After the Nazis dissolved these militias, many of their members joined the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police in German service, where they received weapons-training and became one of the most important instruments of the Holocaust in Belarus and Western Ukraine.

By 1943 the OUN had seized control of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary group, and declared itself opposed to both the retreating Germans and the oncoming Soviets. Although no longer in Nazi service, the UPA nevertheless continued to target and kill Jews, herding them into labor camps for execution. The UPA also engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of Poles during this time, killing nearly 100,000 people.

Even after the Red Army pushed the Germans from Ukraine in the summer of 1944, the UPA continued to fight a partisan war against Soviet forces well into the 1950s, before it was finally crushed by the massive power of the Red Army. It is this legacy of sacrifice that explains the Rada’s decision to pass a law honoring the OUN and the UPA.

This law echoes a recent trend of glorifying right-wing Ukrainian nationalist organizations with controversial pasts. Under former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, a number of leading Ukrainian nationalists were honored with a memorial at Babi Yar — site of the single-worst massacre of Jews during the Holocaust. Yushchenko also bestowed the highest government honor of “Hero of Ukraine” upon the controversial former OUN leader Stepan Bandera — a step roundly condemned by the chief rabbi of Ukraine, the president of Poland and the European Union.

More recently, radical nationalists played a key role as “shock troops” on the Maidan, and the anti-government camp was full of OUN-UPA flags and cries of “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!” — chants that originated with the OUN. Currently, a number of OUN-UPA apologists occupy important government positions, including the minister of education, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine and the director of the Ukrainian government’s Institute of National Memory. Even Poroshenko has gotten into the act, laying a wreath in honor of the OUN at Babi Yar last year.

The draft law has a number of downsides beyond the moral problem of giving the OUN and UPA a free pass for atrocious crimes. Most obviously, making criticism of Holocaust perpetrators illegal is not compatible with Ukraine’s European ambitions. It is natural that many Ukrainians would wish to define themselves in opposition to the former Soviet Union, but as a budding democracy, banning criticism of any organizations — particularly those with such dark pasts — is the wrong way to build national identity.

Kiev also must remember that its conflict with Putin’s Russia is taking place in cyberspace as well as the Donbass. Kiev has now handed the Kremlin “evidence” for Putin’s claim that Russia is facing off against fascists. Not surprisingly, Russian state-owned media outlets have had a field day condemning the law.

Perhaps the worst effect of this law is the way it would split the country. Eastern and western Ukrainians already possess widely diverging views on recent political events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Maidan revolution. The law would only exacerbate these regional differences. Historically, support for the “OUN-cult” originated primarily in the western Ukrainian regions of Galacia and Volhynia, where they are seen as heroic freedom fighters against Soviet oppression. Eastern Ukrainians, by contrast, grew up viewing these groups as Nazi collaborators to be feared and condemned rather than celebrated.

The Rada’s passage of this law has already greatly harmed Ukraine. It is now up to Poroshenko to mitigate the damage by vetoing it.

[GuppyShark]

It's difficult to make Putin look like the good guy, but we can always count on the unelected military junta in control of the Ukraine to do just that....

[Kane Starkiller]

It's difficult to make Putin look like the good guy, but we can always count on the unelected military junta in control of the Ukraine to do just that....

Mindless regurgitation of Russian "unelected military junta" label also helps...

[The Romulan Republic]

From what I've seen about the Ukraine clusterfuck and Russia, I'm inclined to say that both are bad guys. My sympathies are with the poor innocent people caught up in it, not the ass holes in charge.

[GuppyShark]

It's difficult to make Putin look like the good guy, but we can always count on the unelected military junta in control of the Ukraine to do just that....

Mindless regurgitation of Russian "unelected military junta" label also helps...

When were the general elections?

EDIT: I haven't been following it closely since the Presidential election. Ukraine's system is a little confusing on the face of it. Are the Maidan 'appointments' gone?

[K. A. Pital]

The heroes are fitting the nation, what more to say. Idiots who make Nazi collaborants their 'heroes' deserve all the mockery and disgust they can get.

[Kane Starkiller]

The heroes are fitting the nation, what more to say. Idiots who make Nazi collaborants their 'heroes' deserve all the mockery and disgust they can get.

That's very easy to say when beating the Nazis goes hand in hand with your countries geopolitical interest. When beating the Nazis means you'll be going back to being dominated by the country that's fighting the Nazis it's not that clear cut.

[The Romulan Republic]

With all due respect, Nazis are fucking Nazis. It is that clear cut. No moral, rational person could conclude that its acceptable to support Nazis simply because you share a common enemy. Some things are just indefensible whatever the circumstances. Genocidal warmongers are one of them.

[Kane Starkiller]

Like I said very easy to say that now. Not so easy when the other choice is continued subjugation. Which is not to say these people should be forgiven or anything but it is important to know the reasons. Much more powerful nations collaborated with Nazis while it suited them (Russians among them).

[The Romulan Republic]

There's not much about World War II that was easy. But just because something isn't easy doesn't mean it isn't right. And I'm not making excuses for those other collaborators. You work with the Nazis, you're an fucking scumbag.

[Tanasinn]

Considering the Stalin regime famously starved millions in the Holodomor and engaged in systematic campaigns of assassination, kidnapping, torture, and show trials against political dissidents or the randomly unlucky, and considering "thieving rapist" was - not unfairly - the image of the Soviet conscript in contested territories, I'm not sure I can condemn anyone in said contested territories choosing the side not currently brutalizing them.

Take the example of the Finns. The Soviets attempted to conquer their country, and the Finns sought alliances with anyone to protect them from being brutalized by the Soviet Union. That happened to be the Germans, since the rest of the Allies needed Stalin just then. Can you condemn Finns for allying with the Nazis when their national continuity was on the line? Certainly their alliance was more measured and restrained than some other examples.

Not to say that collaboration in Nazi racial purges was anything but deplorable.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes, I can condemn those who allied with the Nazis. And if you were fighting alongside them, you were aiding their genocide, at least indirectly.

Though I'm hardly defending the Soviet Union, of course. Its a classic, tragic case of evil vs. evil with innocent people trapped in between.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not to say that collaboration in Nazi racial purges was anything but deplorable.

Which is the difference between the two.

Ukraine: YAY! Fascism! Can we be Nazis too!? Here, of course you can have our Jews, we dont need them! Hey, what are you digging that mass grave for? Oh, its for Jews? Here, let me hold the shovel. I will even pull the trigger if you want!

Finland: Look, we are just here to get Karelia back. No, we will not persecute our Jews. No, we will not kick Jews our of our army. No, we did not mean to kill some of (<2%) the Russian civilians we captured in East Karelia, but that winter was particularly bad.

[The Romulan Republic]

In that case, I agree that its fair to make a distinction between the two. It doesn't excuse Finland allying with the Nazis, but it is a lesser sin than more extensive collaboration.

[K. A. Pital]

Axis forces killed double or even triple the number of civilians in relation to military casualties in attacked nations.

Say what you will about national interests, but allying with the Axis meant taking part in one of the greatest racial exterminations of recent times; over Europe alone the Axis exterminated 'lower races' in such numbers that they exceeded the entire population of Finland and quite possible the entire population of many other nations too.

By allying with the Nazis you consciously choose not just political dictatorship, indeed, there have been many dictatorships before and after the Nazis - but you choose to take part in a real war of extermination that dwarfs most preceding wars by the sheer number of people exterminated by racial criteria alone.

Hard choices? Very much so. But we are not talking about the Finns, we are talking about such Nazi collaborants who not only took the side of Nazi Germany for political goals, but who actively took part in exterminating Jews and others, e.g. Poles. Last I heard, Finland exited the war on better terms woth the USSR compared to the other nations, but they did not form a special organization to exterminate Jews and their other neighbors. Or did the Finns also go Nazi?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Or did the Finns also go Nazi?

Nope. They did not. Despite the best efforts of the Nazi Power to convince them to.

[Vympel]

Which is the difference between the two.

Ukraine: YAY! Fascism! Can we be Nazis too!? Here, of course you can have our Jews, we dont need them! Hey, what are you digging that mass grave for? Oh, its for Jews? Here, let me hold the shovel. I will even pull the trigger if you want!

Finland: Look, we are just here to get Karelia back. No, we will not persecute our Jews. No, we will not kick Jews our of our army. No, we did not mean to kill some of (<2%) the Russian civilians we captured in East Karelia, but that winter was particularly bad.

Pretty much this. There's an entire cottage industry of Nazi-collaboration apologist fuckwads in Eastern Europe - particularly the Baltic States - who try and make their 'freedom fighters' enthusiastic participation in the Nazi's genocidal crimes an ethical wash by trying to advance the argument that the USSR and Nazi Germany were morally equivalent. Needless to say, that's total bullshit.

In any event, we should be careful not to tar all Ukraine with that brush. Ukraine's government has fallen under the influence of a wing of virulent nationalists who are trying to build a counterfeit national identity on the basis of absurd lies - an identity that is anathema to huge numbers of Ukrainians. The Nazi collaborators of the OUN/UPA is their historical 'vehicle' for this shit.

http://readrussia.com/2015/05/09/russia ... ing-glass/

The entire world is, by this point, intimately familiar with the modern manifestations of “Russian propaganda.” There have been news stories, think tank reports, even a hearing in the US Congress about the dangers posed by Russia’s steadily intensifying information war.

Russia’s state-run media is, obviously, highly selective in its use and understanding of history and all too eager to tar its Ukrainian opponents as “fascists.” Quite a lot of hateful nonsense has come out of Russian media outlets over the past year, things like the famous hoax about the “crucifixion” of a small child in the Donbass.

Much of the criticism that Russian media has attracted is entirely justified. Lying and manipulating history are, of course, very bad things to do. To the extent that Russia attempts to selectively distort and weaponized historical truth it should be vigorously opposed.

There’s been precious little, if any, discussion, however, of the propaganda coming from the Ukrainian side. Oddly, for a group that professes to be so resolutely against Moscow’s retrograde views, the propaganda has a bizarrely Soviet quality to it.

Consider, for example, a recent op-ed by Askold Lozynskyj, the president-emeritus of the Ukrainian World Congress, “We need a discussion on OUN and UPA without labeling and stereotypes.” The editorial is a textbook example of every possible Soviet cliché, particularly and most glaringly whataboutism. There’s almost nothing that ties the piece together except a persistent unwillingness to admit that either the OUN or the UPA did anything that they ought to apologize for:

“Think of other countries and nations at war. How many innocent civilians did the Soviets kill? How many civilians did the Americans kill by dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The OUN and the UPA were heroic formations. No fighters in the twentieth century were more responsible for Ukraine’s independence proclaimed at last in 1991 than those two entities. No one is more deserving of recognition and honor.”

Surely the thousands of peaceful civilians massacred by the OUN and UPA will rest more easily in their graves knowing that the people who put them in the ground were “heroic.”

Reading Lozynskyj I couldn’t help but be reminded of the famous scene at the end of Orwell’s Animal Farm. The pigs who have taken control of the farm (being “more equal” than its other inhabitants) have met with a delegation of visiting farmers. After announcing that the farm’s name will be changed back to what it was previously (the final betrayal of the animals’ revolution) the pigs and humans begin to play a game of cards. However, an argument soon erupts when two of the participants simultaneously try to play the ace of spades. As the other animals watch through the window of the house they can no longer distinguish the animals from the men:

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike… The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Orwell has precisely described the feeling or disorientation and confusion that I have when I look at Russian propaganda about the “triumph of fascism” or the “fascist putsch” and equally asinine propaganda about the “recognition and honor” due to murderous thugs like the OUN and UPA.

The simple truth seems to be that neither the OUN nor UPA are particularly worthy of praise, having been conclusively implicated by a range of historians (Western, Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian) in a range of horrific and violent crimes. As should be obvious this doesn’t in any way delegitimize the idea of Ukrainian independence! It simply means that people advocating for that independence ought to find better examples on which to focus their attention.

If Ukraine’s people want to join the West, if they want to implement the association agreement with the European Union or even join NATO, then they ought to be able to do that. I put very little faith in abstract historical allusions to “Kievan Rus” and to the “fraternal bonds” that supposedly unite Ukrainians and Russians, and a lot more faith in opinion polls and the decisions of democratically elected representatives. Any Russian propaganda which states that it is automatically illegitimate for Ukraine to join up with the West is simply a lie.

But people who want to see Ukraine join the West would very well advised to ditch the strange, obsessive focus on the OUN or UPA visible not only in Lozynskyj’s editorial but in the actions of the Ukrainian government itself (which is currently mulling a law that would make it a criminal offense to deny the role played by either group in securing independence).

Regardless of what Ukrainian nationalists say, the plain truth is that neither the OUN nor the UPA played any role whatsoever in the final dissolution of the Soviet Union and modern Ukraine’s actual emergence as an independent state. That is to say, if you really want to find someone to thank for Ukrainian independence look at Mikhail Gorbachev or one of Boris Yeltsin’s family members, not Stepan Bandera.

Ukraine emerged not because of armed resistance by forest partisans but due to political deal-making at the highest levels of the Soviet state. There’s very little that’s heroic about that particular struggle (it’s much more a story of gray that it is of black or white) but reality is reality and facts care little for our sympathies.

True friends tell hard truths. Ukraine’s Western friends should remind the new government in Kiev that propaganda needs to be fought with facts, not lies.

[Tribble]

When Finland was invaded in 1939, I don't think they were directly supported by anyone. In fact, the British and the French were getting ready to deploy troops to combat Russia when Finland sued for peace. When Finland joined Germany in attacking Russia in 1941, they stopped at their old border with Russia and refused to engage at Leningrad. They solely went to war regain their lost territory, and as was previously stated they did not collaborate with the Nazis in any other way, and retained a democratic government.

This is probably why Britain and the US had some sympathy for Finland during the war. Finland was the only Axis country that the US did not declare war on, and while Britain attacked with airstrikes a few times they usually informed the Finnish government of their targets beforehand so that the civilians could be cleared out. And both countries ended up pressuring Russia not to take over the whole country, which is why Russia stopped at the 1940 border (more or less) and demanded that the Finnish army expel German troops operating in Finland (which was another war in itself).

Was joining the Axis wrong? Sure, but I think it's fair to make a distinction between it and other members.

[Lord Revan]

Tribble has very good point there during Winter War closest thing to an ally we(as in collective "we" I was born in 1982) got were the swedes who only gave supplies and voluntary troops.

Was the alliance with Germany "wrong" possibly, not then it was also the only viable option left, Sweden didn't want to join the war and even if it did it would probably had not had strenght to stop the USSR, besides the swedes Finland had only 2 countries they could call for help due historical ties, Russia (which was not an option for reason I hope I don't have to say) and Germany.

And as others have pointed out Finland was hardly a "nazi fanclub" as Romulan Republic seems to suggest, it was an alliance of convinience nothing else. When Hitler visited Marshal Mannerheim on his (Mannerheim's that is) birthday it's contrast the before visit when Mannerheim acted more or less like you'd expect a man to act on his birthday and when Mannerheim looks like some put a rotten egg under his nose due having to interact with the German dictator, oh and the purpose of that visit was to try to convince Finland to join the siege of Leningrad and Mannerheim refused.

[Tiriol]

Tribble has very good point there during Winter War closest thing to an ally we(as in collective "we" I was born in 1982) got were the swedes who only gave supplies and voluntary troops.

Was the alliance with Germany "wrong" possibly, not then it was also the only viable option left, Sweden didn't want to join the war and even if it did it would probably had not had strenght to stop the USSR, besides the swedes Finland had only 2 countries they could call for help due historical ties, Russia (which was not an option for reason I hope I don't have to say) and Germany.

At that point in history, there were TWO alternatives for any sane politician: Germany or Soviet Union. We are clearly talking about 1940 onwards, so Winter War is over. France has been defeated, Western Europe save for Spain and Portugal are under Nazi rule, Norway is occupied and Eastern Europe is now Stalin's new backyard. Only Great Britain still stands and it couldn't deliver on its promises even during Winter War when France was still in the game and Norway was unoccupied. Sweden is not going to form a permanent military alliance (mostly because Stalin expressed his distaste for Finno-Swedish alliance or any political union), or even a temporary one. Stalin keeps on pressuring Finland while gobbling up the Baltic states. Really, at this point it was either Hitler or Stalin or maybe some mad alliance with some minor European power like Hungary or with Italy. Soviet Union was definitely out of the question. Considering Soviet aggression and their leader, the only sane choice was Hitler's Germany, no matter how distasteful it was. As such, historical ties don't figure that much as one might think, considering that several leading Finnish politicians and officers were openly Anglophiles and mistrustful of Germany (not only due to it being a fascist state).

It was a case of making deals with the devil no matter what. We can count ourselves lucky that Finland managed to turn a monster of an ally into a real advantage and remain an independent, albeit "Finlandized", nation-state while several other countries were not as lucky. We also didn't take part in Nazi atrocities as such and not even Soviets ever accused Finnish SS volunteers (who formed their own battalion in SS Wiking Division) of war crimes or crimes against humanity. It was in fact the Finns who prosecuted some SS volunteers after they remained on German side after Finland and Germany parted ways in 1944. They were found guilty of treason and the most famous of them, Lauri Törni (more known in the US as Larry Thorne), was stripped of his military rank as a result, among other punishments.

Winston Churchill famously called Sweden "a small, cowardly country" for not joining the Allied cause against Germany and trading with Germany during the war. Swedes are, as I understand, still debating the merits and flaws of their approach, but calling a small country cowardly for not going to war with supremely more powerful enemy who has you basically surrounded and outgunned is rich coming from a leader of an entire empire. Finland was in a pretty similar state and had even the dubious honor of being one of the countries partitioned between Germany and Soviet Union in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols, so arguably we had it worse. Bigger, stronger countries simply have much more options open for them than small countries.

[Simon_Jester]

It's difficult to make Putin look like the good guy, but we can always count on the unelected military junta in control of the Ukraine to do just that....

Mindless regurgitation of Russian "unelected military junta" label also helps...

Just to be clear, are you arguing that the Ukrainian government is not unelected? That it is not military? Or that it is not a junta? Could you expand on that a little?

The heroes are fitting the nation, what more to say. Idiots who make Nazi collaborants their 'heroes' deserve all the mockery and disgust they can get.

That's very easy to say when beating the Nazis goes hand in hand with your countries geopolitical interest. When beating the Nazis means you'll be going back to being dominated by the country that's fighting the Nazis it's not that clear cut.

The eventual aim of the Nazi Party was the extermination or ruin of all peoples then living in the Ukraine, so that they could be pushed aside to make Lebensraum for big families of Aryan farmer-colonists. They explicitly spelled this out. In writing. Over a period of decades.

How could that not be clear cut?

I mean fuck, even setting the Holodomor with its hideous, almost-certainly-deliberately-engineered famine as the reference point for the evils of being ruled from Moscow, Stalin never actually put down in writing, repeatedly, that he wanted all Ukrainians dead. Hitler did.

I can grasp how someone in 1941 could fail to realize this, because the Holodomor was fresh in Ukrainians' memory and the Nazis did put in an effort to make themselves sound like anticommunists first and genocidal pro-German racists second. But knowing now what we DO in fact know now, what is part of the well established historical record...

How can anyone with the faintest glimmer of self-respect, or even basic sanity, say that it was praiseworthy to collaborate with and support an invader who wanted to eventually kill all of your people, just because they fought someone who had previously sought to kill only some of your people?

Take the example of the Finns. The Soviets attempted to conquer their country, and the Finns sought alliances with anyone to protect them from being brutalized by the Soviet Union. That happened to be the Germans, since the rest of the Allies needed Stalin just then. Can you condemn Finns for allying with the Nazis when their national continuity was on the line? Certainly their alliance was more measured and restrained than some other examples.

The Finns were an entirely different case because the Nazis did not want to kill all Finns and destroy all things Finnish. They were prepared to live and let live with Finland. In the Ukraine... not so much.

Not to say that collaboration in Nazi racial purges was anything but deplorable.

If you were a Ukrainian in the 1940s, collaborating with the Nazis in any way was collaboration in an eventual Nazi racial purge aimed at you personally!

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Polish-Ukrainian relations are complex and at best one has to look back centuries to understand the complexity. Fast forward to the more immediate past, we had the Polish-Ukrainian War post WWI and that was any thing but clean. There were atrocities and such committed by Poles against Ukrainians and Belorussians. Fast forward to WWII, some Ukrainians decided to "get back at the Poles" for what they did and naturally, the results were bloody.

Of course, what Ukraine has done is glorify the very same people who decided to butcher Poles.

[Xisiqomelir]

I want to hear more about this OUN and UPA.

Orgs like the LTTE were labelled terrorists and mostly were, but had a smidgen of independence fighting.

Orgs like the Irgun Zvai were labelled terrorists and sort of were, but mostly were independence fighters too.

Orgs like the Suffolk Reserves were labelled terrorists, but fuck George III.

I'd like to have some idea of where these two fall on the scale.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I want to hear more about this OUN and UPA.

Orgs like the LTTE were labelled terrorists and mostly were, but had a smidgen of independence fighting.

Orgs like the Irgun Zvai were labelled terrorists and sort of were, but mostly were independence fighters too.

Orgs like the Suffolk Reserves were labelled terrorists, but fuck George III.

I'd like to have some idea of where these two fall on the scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_ ... rn_Galicia

It was a tit for tat for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2% ... ainian_War

Then the Poles tried to create a Ukraine in 1920 and naturally lots of blood was spilled until the Soviets pushed them out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev_Offensive_%281920%29)

In a way, the place is like some crazy North Eastern version of the Balkans.

[Simon_Jester]

The area in question is physically adjacent to the Balkans and shares some of the same problems (foreign conquerors dividing up the land and stirring things up in the 18th century and earlier, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russian Empire trying to impose order by various means that caused long term trouble and the rise of nationalism in the 19th).

So no surprise there.

Polish-Ukrainian relations are complex and at best one has to look back centuries to understand the complexity. Fast forward to the more immediate past, we had the Polish-Ukrainian War post WWI and that was any thing but clean. There were atrocities and such committed by Poles against Ukrainians and Belorussians. Fast forward to WWII, some Ukrainians decided to "get back at the Poles" for what they did and naturally, the results were bloody.

Of course, what Ukraine has done is glorify the very same people who decided to butcher Poles.

Thing is, the Ukrainians were going to be targets too. There was no place in the Nazis' "New Order" for any large population of Slavs. And the Ukraine was definitely on Hitler's list of lands worth colonizing by Germans.