THE Kremlin chief of staff, Sergey Ivanov has been interviewed on World War II history, and Ukraine by the website of pro-government Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda on 28 January.
Aleksandr Gamov opened saying: ‘Sergey Borisovich, I have a question for you as not only the leader of our president’s staff, but also as chairman of the organisational committee for preparations for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory.
‘I am talking about the attempts to distort our history. Mr Yatsenyuk (Ukraine’s coupist prime minister) stated first of all that the Soviet Union, Russia seized Ukraine and Germany.
‘And now he has gone as far as to say that Auschwitz was liberated by representatives of Lviv and Zhytomyr.
‘What do you make of all that? Why does our Victory still generate fear and panic among these people?’
Ivanov responded: ‘I do not think that it is fear and panic. This is a desire to kind of refashion the outcome of World War II, a desire to partly diminish Russia’s enormous role as the successor to the Soviet Union.
‘Although I always emphasise that it was not Russia, but the Soviet Union and its multiethnic people that won the war, and, of course, it was it, our multiethnic people, who liberated Auschwitz.
‘When I talk to veterans, I ask them a simple question: “At that time, 70 years ago, did you know who your fellow soldier, sitting next to you in the trench, was, where he was from?”
‘They respond: “You know, it did not occur to us to ask whether they were Ukrainian, or Belarusian, or Kazakh. . . We considered ourselves to be one people, a united people. And thanks to that we were victorious.”
‘So now, there is a specific division into nationalities. We are not doing this – they are. . . The reason for this is opportunism. This opportunism has greatly gone up in value, if you can put it like that, in the past ten years.
‘I can remember when the 60th anniversary of the Victory was being celebrated – there was not this informational confrontation and attempts to distort history. I came here, to Auschwitz, myself, 10 years ago. At that time everything was fine and everyone recognised the role of the Red Army and the Soviet Union.
‘Incidentally, today too, none of the speakers forgot to mention the fact that freedom came from the Red Army, and not from Ukraine, not from Russia. It came from the Soviet Union and from its Red Army.
‘As far as the attempts to do something to history are concerned. . . I think that this will continue. Unfortunately. This is caused by a number of reasons. One of them is the desire to pinch Russia harder.
‘To put pressure on the emotional side of things. As it happens, I can hear most indignation from veterans and those who know history well. This is the world we live in, unfortunately.
‘Our task is simply to tell the truth objectively. We are trying to do this. I am convinced that despite everything, 9 May will be marked at a high level in our country.
‘Incidentally, our participation in the event to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is a link in the chain of preparations for the anniversary of the Great Victory. And the celebration of 9 May on Red Square will be the pinnacle of this.
‘I can tell you that the heads of 20 states have already confirmed that they will be arriving in Moscow 9 May. And if some of the other countries do not come – then never mind, we will cope – it will not be the first time.’
Gamov asked: ‘Isn’t Mr Komorowski, the president of Poland, planning to conduct kind of alternative ceremonies here, in Gdansk, 9 May.’
Ivanov responded: ‘Marking the victory in Gdansk is strange, in my view. What victory was there in Gdansk? World War II began in Gdansk. That is a historical fact, which, as far as I am aware, no one has ever disputed.
‘Well, it seems to me that this too is part of a series of such attempts: Simply to fib a little about history, let’s say, change it, correct it slightly, retouch such facts. . . I am convinced that it is impossible to retouch or change them. . . It is very hard to fight with the truth. Of course it is possible, and attempts are made. But to win against the truth is very hard.
‘And I am sure that the majority of Europe’s inhabitants know perfectly well how it, the Victory, was achieved and at what price. . .
‘And by the way, I would like to say thank you, despite everything, to the Polish authorities, for the fact that the majority of monuments to Soviet soldiers – and 600,000 of our compatriots gave up their lives here – these monuments are in a good state, and ordinary people and local authorities look after them.’
Meanwhile Belarusian President Lukashenka has held a record seven-hour ‘pen dialogue’ with the media.
The event, entitled ‘Open Dialogue’ and carried live by Belarusian radio, involved nearly 300 journalists from foreign and domestic media, including opposition outlets, and was marked by a notable atmosphere of plurality unseen at most earlier conferences hosted by Lukashenka.
Asked about how to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine, Lukashenka said he saw no point in replacing the Minsk cease-fire agreements with any other negotiating format.
He said: ‘I am convinced that the Minsk format will be in demand very soon. There is no other format, and it is harmful to start any reformatting.’ He also denied any ‘peacemaker’s’ ambitions of his own, saying he was ready to carry ‘tea and pencils’ personally for participants in the talks.
Speaking about Russia’s role in the crisis, Lukashenka said that Russia was ‘just partly to blame’ for the conflict and had ‘already had enough of Ukraine’.
Regarding the ‘annexation’ of Crimea, Lukashenka said that Ukraine had ‘lain itself bare’ and ‘should have fought’ for Crimea if it though it was its land.
Asked about the possibility of the Ukrainian scenario being repeated in Belarus, Lukashenka warned that Belarus was able to protect itself.
‘We will not cede our country to anyone. This is my task, my mission and I will fulfil it no matter what it costs me. Hundreds of thousands of armed people stand behind me. So, live in peace,’ he said.
He added that Belarus would keep developing its armed forces and would soon get some modern weapons of its own production.
‘We need to have good weapons that we need so much now so that a would-be aggressor could not even dream of waging a war against Belarus. We need this kind of systems, and we will have them in a couple of months’ time,’ he added.
Lukashenka spoke at length on Eurasian integration and its various levels in various organisations, which ‘complement each other’. He said the highest level was achieved in the Union State of Belarus and Russia.
‘The Union of Belarus and Russia is an economic and military-political union. We have far fewer problems and we have advanced much farther in integration with Russia than in the Eurasian Economic Union,’ he said.
As an illustration of good cooperation with Russia, he cited the low price Belarus was paying for Russian gas compared to Ukraine.
He denied claims that the Belarusian economy was ‘in a predefault state’. He said Belarus could probably survive without loans, but expressed his confidence that Russia would ‘give us the shoulder if necessary’.
Lukashenka said that Belarus was looking after its economic interests in the Eurasian Economic Union and reserved the right to leave if it found the alliance unprofitable.
‘We will strictly observe everything related to the Eurasian Economic Union. We will. If obligations are not observed, we reserve the right even to leave this union,’ he said, adding that it would be ‘difficult to accelerate’ the integration processes.
Lukashenka stressed his political independence, saying that he ‘never courted, or knelt before, the East or the West’. He said he did not trust the West, but saw no enemies there, either.
‘Of course, I see what is going on in the Western countries regarding this. But I do not trust our Western partners. This is politics. Today, Belarus’s position is advantageous to the West and they will thank us for our position. We hear it, but nothing more. I am a pragmatist. No breakthroughs in relations with Europe and the USA are likely until after the presidential election.’
‘As regards Maydan (mass protests in the Ukrainian capital), I said many times before that if anyone has a crazy thought that there will be a Maydan in Belarus, or even that it is possible here, the sooner you throw it out of your head the better, because this place should be taken by information useful for your life.
‘There will never be a Maydan in Belarus. As long as I am president. I have enough powers and forces to prevent a fratricidal massacre. Nobody, not you, not me, not those sitting here, not those listening to us need a Maydan,’ he said, adding that ‘no-one will be allowed to fight inside our Belarus, a peaceful and secure country, of which we are proud. That is the reason why there will be no Maydan here.’
Asked about possible changes to the country’s language policy following critical Russian reports about supposed plans to replace the Russian language with Belarusian in teaching some school subjects, Lukashenka said the principle of having both languages as equal state ones remained unchanged.
He said he would like his youngest son to have the same command of Belarusian as of Russian.
Lukashenka described the Russian language as his and all Belarusians’ ‘treasure’.
‘As the Belarusian nation, we will know the Belarusian language well, but we will not give our second native language, Russian, to anyone, This is our language,’ Lukashenka said.
He remarked that ‘the events in Ukraine resulted from a stupid national policy, primarily the language one’.
Speaking about the economy, Lukashenka ruled out Russian- or Ukrainian-style liberalisation and stated his continued adherence to a ‘socially-orientated economy’.
‘I will not give up the socially-orientated model until the end of my presidency,’ he declared, adding that ‘there is no need to break the model’.
‘The path of shock therapy is unacceptable to us,’ Lukashenka said.
