“We don’t need a special invitation to honour the memory of the Soviet liberators and the victims of Nazism … in publicly accessible places,”
No, Nechayev, you’re Russian. Germans and, to a lesser but significant degree, EU citizens enjoy freedom of assembly and movement in Germany, everyone else is merely tolerated.
What about the other genociders? Germany???
This is insane. The Soviet Union had by far the biggest losses during WW2 in the fight against Nazism. Around eight to ten million soldiers died during the war, and if you add the civilian casualties on top of that, the estimates sit at around 24 million people. Many of those people were Russian and Belorussian. Let them mourn their dead. It doesn’t matter that the Russian ambassador is a prick or not. I think it speaks volumes when the country that started WW2 does shit like this and it’s not okay.
By “the country that started WW2”, do you mean Germany or Russia? Because the USSR was also one of the initial aggressors of WW2. They invaded Poland together, divided eastern Europe between the USSR and Nazi Germany, invaded the Baltics and Finland. The USSR and Nazi Germany were basically allies until Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded.
Russian representatives aren’t being banned because of the behaviour of this ambassador. They’re being banned becaue they are expected to misuse the publicity of an event where Ukrainians - the Soviet republic with the second-highest military and civilian casualties - will also be present
You’ve got two parts of the former Soviet Union fighting a brutal war against each other. You probably can’t invite both sides to the same event and expect it to go okay. Which side do you invite? The one that didn’t start the problem
Look, the country that was putting soviet citizens in concentration camps and tried to starve St. Petersburg out doesn’t have shit to say about who gets to mourn their dead and who doesn’t. It’s straight up disrespectful and definitely not Germany’s place to say anything. Like honestly, what’s the worst the Russian ambassador could do? No one is asking to let him hold a speech. So what could he even do that’s so bad? Start a fist fight with the Ukrainian ambassador? Lol
The country kidnapping Ukrainian kids while starving Kiev can go fuck themselves
So does Israel, yet you don’t see Germany making a big fuss about it. How come you suddenly believe that Germany has found its morals when it comes to Russia but somehow still lacks them when it comes to Israel?
The people that committed the crimes of Nazi Germany are dead, and good riddance to them. Modern Germany is doing the right thing by commemorating their defeat. They can do that on their own terms in their own country. People don’t get to just do whatever they want in Germany on the basis of being from a country that suffered under the Nazis.
Nobody is asking Nechayev to make a speech, but nobody is asking him to attend either and he still plans to do that. Nechayev described this commemoration as “part of the path to our reconciliation”, so he clearly thinks of it as something Germany should be doing in order to be friendlier with Russia despite Russia’s actions
They can do that on their own terms in their own country.
No. They cannot. Germany has a tremendous responsibility for the sins of its past and has been actively failing to make up for them for 80 years now. Germany is still chock full of nazis to the brim.
If Germany isn’t doing it on its own terms then it’s not Germany doing it, is it? Not only can Germany do it on its own terms, it only matters if Germany does it on its own terms.
Regardless, the responsibility Germany has does not entail giving Russia propaganda fodder for its own imperialism. That helps literally nobody.
Not too sure how effective this is tho, as a solution.
It seems to me like a diplomatic escalation in the sense that banning the Russian ambassador from attending this commemoration event gives Putin something to instrumentalise anyways, at least for internal consumption. In the same time this move does not apply any kind of actual pressure on Russia. So I honestly don’t know what good can come out of this move.
If Putin is going to make use of it either way, it seems to me like you might as well pick the option that makes it more likely for the event to go ahead without incident. It’s not like Germany is burning any good will with Russia here, there isn’t any to burn
So in the name of civility we can’t take proactive steps to limit a belligerent country’s ability to cause shit?
I don’t think you get to play the “well you started ww2 card” when you’re trying your damndest to start ww3 lmao
Especially since Russia was an ally to Nazi Germany, and would have happily followed that path to the end if Hitler hadn’t turned on them.
That’s one of the dumbest arguments I’ve read today. When was Russia an ally of Nazi Germany? Pick up a history book.
I know it’s not an alliance but they’re probably referring to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which is a fair point.
Side note: Russia is the equivalent of Nazi Germany of Europe in 2025. Another reason not to invite them.
Check my other comment. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, while it can be criticised, doesn’t mean shit in the grand context. All the other western european nations rushed to the negotiating table to break bread with the Nazis way sooner than the Soviets ever did.
Besides that, if Germany even gave a realistic shit about Nazis nowadays they wouldn’t be supporting a genocide in Palestine, nor would they allow their beloved politicians to spew constant Nazi rhetoric in public, nor would they allow all the Nazis to join the police force, or the military, or authoritative institutions, nor would they allow all the German millionaires and billionaires that inherited Nazi money to further exist. You know, the ones whose beloved grandparents owned factories where they worked jewish slaves to death? Those ones. But sure, do tell me how Germany all of the sudden gives a shit about one single fascist country while continuing to support all the other fascists on the planet.
You are the one who needs to pick up a history book - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact
To be fair - this was a non-aggression pact, nothing about an alliance.
This is straight up insane. There have been straight up at least 5 other such pacts between Nazi Germany and all the other western allied countries, and yet no one seems to claim that those countries were “allies” and “best buds” with the Nazis. In fact, the Soviets were literally the last ones out of all the European allies to sign a non aggression treaty with the Nazis.
Non Aggression pacts aside, to even go as far as to claim that these two nations were allies is even more insane than criticising the one singular pact itself. The Nazis were talking about “judeo bolshevism” for YEARS, spewing constant anti-soviet rhetoric, and publicly fantasising about invading and destroying the Soviet state. The other European allied nations even looked the other way when shit started to hit the fan because they deemed the nazis better than the communists.
Just throwing the Molotov Ribbentrop pact out there shows that you know next to nothing about WW2 history. Now let’s take a look at all the other such pacts before the Molotov Ribbentrop one even happened:
- German–Polish Declaration of Non-Aggression - January 26, 1934
- Anti-Comintern Pact between Nazi Germany and Japan (not a western allied nation but a straight up anti communist pact) - November 25, 1936
- The Franco-German Declaration - December 6, 1938
- German–Danish Non-Aggression Pact - May 31, 1939
- German–Estonian Non-Aggression Pact - June 7, 1939
- German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact - June 7, 1939
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact - 23 August 1939
In between these “non aggression pacts” there are the following other treaties as well:
- Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935): This agreement with the British allowed Germany the right to build a navy beyond the limits set by the Treaty of Versailles.
- Munich Agreement (September 1938): The British, French, and Italy agreed to concede the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for a pledge of peace. WWII began one year later, when Germany invaded Poland.
- German-Romanian Economic Treaty (March 1939): This agreement established German control over most aspects of Romanian economy.
But go on, do tell me how this one piece of fascist propaganda you keep spewing stands. The Molotov RIbbentrop pact is heralded by all the anti-communist organisations as this one single golden proof to equate the Soviet Union with Nazi Germany, whereas in the actual reality, the Soviet Union was the last nation to sit at the same table with the Nazis before the war started. All the other “democracy spreading nations” you love so much broke bread with the Nazis way sooner than the Soviets did.
I stand by my words. Go pick up a book and get off your high horse.
Nice job completely ignoring the key difference between the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the rest of those agreements: an alignment with Nazi Germany to STEAL LAND! Just like fascist Russia is doing again with Ukraine.
“Under the Secret Protocol, Poland was to be shared, while Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia went to the Soviet Union. The protocol also recognized the interest of Lithuania in the Vilnius region. In the west, rumoured existence of the Secret Protocol was proven only when it was made public during the Nuremberg trials”
You can try to re-write history all you want, but the Soviets/Russians were in alignment with Nazi Germany to further their imperialistic goals.
The soviets did what was right in order to protect polish jews and their own citizens from the german hordes. The nazi troglodytes made it extremely clear that they were going to attack the Soviet Union and leave nothing but scorched land behind them on their way to Moscow. Which they eventually did. The Soviet Union did the only smart thing at the time, which was to create a buffer zone while they were consolidating their military forces in order to eventually fight back against the germans, instead of just making the libs feel nice and letting the nazis take the entirety of Poland, as they were planning to anyways.
On the other hand this gives Russia exactly what they want, they get to play the victim.
Well, it’s Thursday.
