Russia ready to kill those who oppose it
ROSS EASTGATE
There’s one thing Russia’s rulers can’t tolerate. It is those who challenge their self-assumed total authority. If there’s one thing history has demonstrated about Russia’s behaviour it is that they will ruthlessly eliminate those who do.
History inevitably regurgitates itself.
With sophisticated evidence pointing to Russian war crimes in its increasingly futile current attempt to subjugate its independent neighbour, memories of similar atrocities in neighbouring countries are brought to mind.
On 3 September 1939 Poland was invaded by Germany, the major catalyst for World War I then on 19 September by Russia.
In April-may 1940, the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) precursor of the KGB now FSB perpetrated a series of massacres of Polish military officers and intelligentsia.
Although the total figure may never be known, 22,000 Poles were systematically murdered on the direct orders of the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin.
It was allegedly the idea of Stalin’s NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria. The Poles’ crime was the officer class represented Poland multi-ethnicity and victims included ethnic Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews.
Although the murders were committed at a number of locations, it was mass graves at Katyn Wood that give the atrocity its identity.
When German troops discovered those mass graves three years later, Stalin attempted to shift the blame on the Nazis, themselves no
amateurs in mass exterminations.
Stalin even had the gall to call for an investigation.
It was not until 1990 during intense leadership manoeuvring that Russia finally admitted responsibility for the atrocity.
Poles, however, have not forgotten, nor will they.
Many Polish Australians have links with those murdered at Katyn.
Contemporary figures suggest 150,000 Poles died during Russian occupation, while 320,000 were deported to Russia.
Nearly all those classified as Katyn victims were shot in the back of the head, including 50 women.
Ironically during and after the war both Germany and Russia blamed each other for the atrocity, until Russian culpability was finally admitted, although the fate of many Poles is a lingering sore on RussianPolish relations.
Modern surveillance methods and improved communications have ensured the world has been better informed about Russian atrocities in Ukraine, although Russia continues to deny culpability.
The world can only hope it’s not another 50 years before the truth is revealed and those responsible held to account.
Those who ignore history’s lessons are bound to repeat them.