Politics
Why the war in Europe did not end in 1945
Reading Time: 6 minutesEuropean countries tend to commemorate various anniversaries each year. These commemorations mark the symbolism and the role we attribute to the history in our today‘s lives. Usually these are the dates that we are proud of, but hardly anyone can be proud of the sad start of the World War II — the 70-th anniversary of which we commemorate this year. On the contrary, all commemorative ceremonies of it are followed by discussions on who started it and who is to blame for this war.
Aistė Bertulytė-Žikevičienė, Vilnius University (2009)
Armed anti-Soviet resistance in Lithuania and Western Ukraine
European countries tend to commemorate various anniversaries each year. These commemorations mark the symbolism and the role we attribute to the history in our today‘s lives. Usually these are the dates that we are proud of, but hardly anyone can be proud of the sad start of the World War II — the 70-th anniversary of which we commemorate this year. On the contrary, all commemorative ceremonies of it are followed by discussions on who started it and who is to blame for this war. Although Germany has bravely accepted all the dark sides of its past and pleaded for forgiveness, the guilt is not the political and moral monopoly of Germany alone. The emergence of two major totalitarian regimes in the 20th century, their collaboration and rivalry that culminated in signing of Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, led to this disastrous war and the partition of Europe.
However, one nation will soon commemorate something that it could be really proud of. These are the Finns. Finland successfully resisted the attack of Soviet Union in 1939, just a few months after the invasion by Germans and Soviets to Poland. Although they say that Red Army was not in “good form”, the Soviet forces had four times as many soldiers, 30 times as many aircrafts and 218 times as many tanks, as Finns. Finns really can be proud of this victory, as I think we would be, if our country had resolved to fight. At least you can often hear Lithuanians putting Finland as an example when arguing on how the fate of our country after the World War II could have been different.
Lithuania was occupied by the USSR in the summer of 1940. Despite of the bluff, orchestrated by the Soviets, that Lithuania voluntarily entered the Union, the collapse of the Statehood and its inability to resist to the aggressor was perceived as something unexpected and shameful by the majority of Lithuania’s society. Therefore, during the German occupation and when the Soviets returned, thousands of Lithuanians chose the path of freedom fighters.
And our story was not unique. The partisan war started in all territories in Eastern and Central Europe occupied by the USSR: Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and others. In 1945, when according to an official version the World War II ended, in a big part of Europe an armed struggle has been continuing in its highest intensity.
And this continuous struggle raises serious doubts about the version of “the end” of the 2nd World War as well. If the war was over, then who, why and for what purpose were fighting after “the only” evil was defeated and the “main” criminals of the war were punished at Nurnberg?
According to the studies by Lithuanian researchers, the anti-soviet resistance in Lithuania and Western Ukraine stands out in scale and intensity in the area occupied by the Soviets. Although the number of freedom fighters killed in Lithuania was three times lower than in Ukraine, the number of partisan attacks in both countries was very similar (1,333 and 1,603 respectively). What determined such an intense resistance to soviet regime in our countries?
The history of the two nations in the first part of the 20th century is different. In Ukraine, the armed struggle for independence had been going on since 1918 and against all countries which have ruled it; whereas Lithuania had its 20 years period as an independent state. But during the 2nd World War, both nations were caught between Nazi and Soviet regimes and their inhumane aggression in the occupied territories. Main structures of Ukrainian resistance movements developed and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) was founded already during German occupation, and in Lithuanian freedom fighters finally united into the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters in 1949. Although in neither of the two countries the resistance (first anti-german and then anti-soviet) was organized and stimulated by the state, the objectives that both nations had in their struggle could be expressed in the same words Finnish Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Mannerheim’s said to his solders on the day Soviets attacked Finland: “This war is nothing other than the continuation and final act of our War of Independence. We are fighting for our homes, our faith, and our country.”
The struggle against totalitarian regimes in both Lithuania and Ukraine were based on their populations’ inherent national values. The romantic view would explain the extremely high commitment of Lithuanians and Ukrainians alluding to a common heritage of traditions of political nation, tolerance, democracy and freedom, stemming from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where our nations lived together for many centuries. Whatever historical roots it may actually have, for most of the freedom fighters their choice to resist was formed by the education and culture they were raised with – a common European culture.
What does it mean to be European and to belong to European cultural tradition while maintaining sovereignty of own country, was the question our nations had to answer on many occasions since the Middle Ages. It was in 20th century, however, that we were asked these questions in a very brutal way.
As one of the most cherished belongings for the Europeans of those days was their land and individual property rights, so was this the case for Lithuanians and Ukrainians. Totalitarian regimes brutally attacked “our homes, our faith, and our country“, that’s why our resistance arose spontaneously and embraced different levels of the population. Our partisans were not just good soldiers, not afraid of sacrifying their lives for the homeland. Most of them were ordinary people who in other circumstances would have probably been farmers, doctors or teachers.
Totalitarian regimes ignored our quest for independent and sovereign state. The study of the organizational structures of resistance movements in Ukraine and Lithuania reveals that one of the main objectives for them was to keep the idea of their statehood alive. Instead of spontaneous fighting the resistant fighters in Lithuania and Ukraine were strictly organized and used the term of an “Army” in the names of their movements. They strived to maintain the regular structure, ranks and uniforms of the regular armed forces of the state. They had their statutes, they issued laws and declarations. In all the circumstances they strived to act as the legitimate military and political power representing their nations’ sovereign rights.
The documents issued by our resistance movements, such us the Resolutions of the Extraordinary Assembly of the OUN in 1943, the principal documents of the Supreme Ukrainian Liberation Council of 1944, or the declaration of 1949 issued by the Joint Staff of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters, clearly express the pledge to rebuild a free and democratic country. Their unequivocal condemnation of fascist and communist ideologies also reveals that the resistant movements of both nations assumed the mandate which was common to all European liberal democracies: to defend European values and liberal rights of the people against the totalitarian aggressor. Freedom fighters expected that sooner or later the Western democracies will declare a war on the Soviet Union, but their worldview proved to be too idealistic. They also aspired for the joint anti-soviet resistance of all occupied Eastern European countries, a good example of which is an attempt of a group of Ukrainian rebels, in August 1950, to reach Lithuania.
Freedom fighters in each of our countries mostly fought alone. But the World War II, for those who understood it as a struggle for their homes and their country, as a fight for the ideal of freedom and European values, for these nations that remained occupied by the totalitarian aggressor, this war continued almost one decade after 1945. But without any external support, however, the resistance was doomed to failure.
A considerable part of Europe does not know yet the full story about what happened across Central and Eastern Europe after the Yalta and Potsdam took place. The Soviets worked a lot on this. It was crucial for the aggressor not only to break down the resistance, but to erase the memory of the mere existence of it, by spreading propaganda, by information blockade – but mainly by killing, burning alive or deporting the entire families of concerned farmers and partisans. In these unequal fights, more than 20,000 Lithuanian freedom fighters have perished. The Soviet regime imprisoned or deported to Siberia more than 300,000 residents of Lithuania. The numbers in Ukraine are three times as high.
Nowadays, the possibility to reach the primary sources, the authentic documents of partisans and the Soviet repressive structures (the KGB and its forerunners the NKVD and the MGB) opens new opportunities for deeper and more objective analysis of partisan war in Central and Eastern Europe. New academic analysis by Lithuanian researches point out that according to the standards of international law, anti-soviet resistance period in Lithuanian has many features of an inter-state war with the Soviet Union. And looking at the objectives the freedom fighters pursued, we can actually conclude that they had won this war and we can be proud no less then the Finns are. The living memory of freedom fighters during the dark years of Soviet occupation united us and gave us hope that a day would come when Independence of our countries would be restored. The armed resistance movements in the Baltic Countries and Western Ukraine in 1944–1953 became major determinants for the future historic events, for the 1990 and 1991. Lithuania and Ukraine have re-established their statehoods and the communism had lost.
Historians are not the ones that can lay the foundations for a more sustainable future. The only thing we can offer is to remember and honour our past. There is something very important what we can learn from the partisans of Lithuania and Ukraine. Our common history and experience show us that the answers to today’s challenges do not lie in our States alone. We must put human dignity and devotion at the heart of our endeavours, as our freedom fighters did for their homeland.
—
Presentation at the international conference "World War II and the (Re)Creation of Historical Memory in Contemporary Ukraine"; September 23-26, 2009; Kyiv, Ukraine
A new football club has earned a leading place in the UEFA Champions League groups and starred in the headlines of worldwide football news yesterday. The Football Club Sheriff Tiraspol claimed a win with the score 2-1 against Real Madrid on the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. That made Sheriff Tiraspol the leader in Group D of the Champions League, including the football club in the groups of the most important European interclub competition for the first time ever.
International media outlets called it a miracle, a shock and a historic event, while strongly emphasizing the origin of the team and the existing political conflict between the two banks of the Dniester. “Football club from a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Moldova pulls off one of the greatest upsets in Champions League history,” claimed the news portals. “Sheriff crushed Real!” they said.
Moldovans made a big fuss out of it on social media, splitting into two groups: those who praised the team and the Republic of Moldova for making history and those who declared that the football club and their merits belong to Transnistria – a problematic breakaway region that claims to be a separate country.
Both groups are right and not right at the same time, as there is a bunch of ethical, political, social and practical matters that need to be considered.
Is it Moldova?
First of all, every Moldovan either from the right or left bank of Dniester (Transnistria) is free to identify himself with this achievement or not to do so, said Vitalie Spranceana, a sociologist, blogger, journalist and urban activist. According to him, boycotting the football club for being a separatist team is wrong.
At the same time, “it’s an illusion to think that territory matters when it comes to football clubs,” Spranceana claimed. “Big teams, the ones included in the Champions League, have long lost their connection both with the countries in which they operate, and with the cities in which they appeared and to which they linked their history. […] In the age of globalized commercial football, teams, including the so-called local ones, are nothing more than global traveling commercial circuses, incidentally linked to cities, but more closely linked to all sorts of dirty, semi-dirty and cleaner cash flows.”
What is more important in this case is the consistency, not so much of citizens, as of politicians from the government who have “no right to celebrate the success of separatism,” as they represent “the national interests, not the personal or collective pleasures of certain segments of the population,” believes the political expert Dionis Cenusa. The victory of FC Sheriff encourages Transnistrian separatism, which receives validation now, he also stated.
“I don’t know how it happens that the “proud Moldovans who chose democracy”, in their enthusiasm for Sheriff Tiraspol’s victory over Real Madrid, forget the need for total and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria!” declared the journalist Vitalie Ciobanu.
Nowadays, FC Sheriff Tiraspol has no other choice than to represent Moldova internationally. For many years, the team used the Moldovan Football Federation in order to be able to participate in championships, including international ones. That is because the region remains unrecognised by the international community. However, the club’s victory is presented as that of Transnistria within the region, without any reference to the Republic of Moldova, its separatist character being applied in this case especially.
Is it a victory?
In fact, FC Sheriff Tiraspol joining the Champions League is a huge image breakthrough for the Transnistrian region, as the journalist Madalin Necsutu claimed. It is the success of the Tiraspol Club oligarchic patrons. From the practical point of view, FC Sheriff Tiraspol is a sports entity that serves its own interests and the interests of its owners, being dependent on the money invested by Tiraspol (but not only) oligarchs.
Here comes the real dilemma: the Transnistrian team, which is generously funded by money received from corruption schemes and money laundering, is waging an unequal fight with the rest of the Moldovan football clubs, the journalist also declared. The Tiraspol team is about to raise 15.6 million euro for reaching the Champions League groups and the amounts increase depending on their future performance. According to Necsutu, these money will go directly on the account of the club, not to the Moldovan Football Federation, creating an even bigger gab between FC Sheriff and other football clubs from Moldova who have much more modest financial possibilities.
“I do not see anything useful for Moldovan football, not a single Moldovan player is part of FC Sheriff Tiraspol. I do not see anything beneficial for the Moldovan Football Federation or any national team.”
Is it only about football?
FC Sheriff Tiraspol, with a total estimated value of 12.8 million euros, is controlled by Victor Gusan and Ilya Kazmala, being part of Sheriff Holding – a company that controls the trade of wholesale, retail food, fuels and medicine by having monopolies on these markets in Transnistria. The holding carries out car trading activities, but also operates in the field of construction and real estate. Gusan’s people also hold all of the main leadership offices in the breakaway region, from Parliament to the Prime Minister’s seat or the Presidency.
The football club is supported by a holding alleged of smuggling, corruption, money laundering and organised crime. Moldovan media outlets published investigations about the signals regarding the Sheriff’s holding involvement in the vote mobilization and remuneration of citizens on the left bank of the Dniester who participated in the snap parliamentary elections this summer and who were eager to vote for the pro-Russian socialist-communist bloc.
Considering the above, there is a great probability that the Republic of Moldova will still be represented by a football club that is not identified as being Moldovan, being funded from obscure money, growing in power and promoting the Transnistrian conflict in the future as well.
Photo: unknown
Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavrilita, together with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicu Popescu, pay an official visit to Brussels, between September 27-28, being invited by High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell Fontelles.
Today, Prime Minister had a meeting with Charles Michel, President of the European Council. The Moldovan PM thanked the senior European official for the support of the institution in strengthening democratic processes, reforming the judiciary and state institutions, economic recovery and job creation, as well as increasing citizens’ welfare. Natalia Gavrilita expressed her confidence that the current visit laid the foundations for boosting relations between the Republic of Moldova and the European Union, so that, in the next period, it would be possible to advance high-level dialogues on security, justice and energy. Officials also exchanged views on priorities for the Eastern Partnership Summit, to be held in December.
“The EU is open to continue to support the Republic of Moldova and the ambitious reform agenda it proposes. Moldova is an important and priority partner for us,” said Charles Michel.
Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita also met with Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economy, expressing her gratitude for the support received through the OMNIBUS macro-financial assistance program. The two officials discussed the need to advance the recovery of money from bank fraud, to strengthen sustainable mechanisms for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in Moldova, and to standardize the customs and taxes as one of the main conditions for deepening cooperation with the EU in this field.
Additionally, Prime Minister spoke about the importance of the Eastern Partnership and the Deep Free Trade Agreement, noting that the Government’s policies are aimed at developing an economic model aligned with the European economic model, focused on digitalization, energy efficiency and the green economy.
A common press release of the Moldovan Prime Minister with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission, Josep Borrell Fontelles, took place today, where the agenda of Moldova’s reforms and the main priorities to focus on in the coming months were presented: judiciary reform; fighting COVID-19 pandemic; promoting economic recovery and conditions for growth and job creation; strengthening state institutions and resilience of the country.
“I am here to relaunch the dialogue between my country and the European Union. Our partnership is strong, but I believe there is room for even deeper cooperation and stronger political, economic and sectoral ties. I am convinced that this partnership is the key to the prosperity of our country and I hope that we will continue to strengthen cooperation.”
The Moldovan delegation met Didier Reynders, European Commissioner for Justice. Tomorrow, there are scheduled common meetings with Oliver Varhelyi, European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Adina Valean, European Commissioner for Transport and Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy.
Prime Minister will also attend a public event, along with Katarina Mathernova, Deputy Director-General for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.
Photo: gov.md
Politics
Promo-LEX about Maia Sandu’s UN speech: The president must insist on appointing a rapporteur to monitor the situation of human rights in Transnistria
The President of the Republic of Moldova, Maia Sandu, pays an official visit to New York, USA, between September 21-22. There, she participates in the work of the United Nations General Assembly. According to a press release of the President’s Office, the official will deliver a speech at the tribune of the United Nations.
In this context, the Promo-LEX Association suggested the president to request the appointment of a special rapporteur in order to monitor the situation of human rights in the Transnistrian region. According to Promo-LEX, the responsibility for human rights violations in the Transnistrian region arises as a result of the Russian Federation’s military, economic and political control over the Tiraspol regime.
“We consider it imperative to insist on the observance of the international commitments assumed by the Russian Federation regarding the withdrawal of the armed forces and ammunition from the territory of the country,” the representatives of Promo-LEX stated. They consider the speech before the UN an opportunity “to demand the observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Russian Federation with reference to this territory which is in its full control.”
“It is important to remember about the numerous cases of murder, torture, ill-treatment, forced enlistment in illegal military structures, the application of pseudo-justice in the Transnistrian region, all carried out under the tacit agreement of the Russian Federation. These findings stem from dozens of rulings and decisions issued by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Russia is responsible for human rights violations in the region.”
The association representatives expressed their hope that the president of the country would give priority to issues related to the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region and would call on relevant international actors to contribute to guaranteeing fundamental human rights and freedoms throughout Moldova.
They asked Maia Sandu to insist on the observance of the obligation to evacuate the ammunition and the military units of the Russian Federation from the territory of the Republic of Moldova, to publicly support the need for the Russian Federation to implement the ECtHR rulings on human rights violations in the Transnistrian region, and to request the appointment of an UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova.
**
The Promo-LEX Association concluded that 14 out of 25 actions planned within the National Action Plan for the years 2018–2022 concerning respecting human rights in Transnistria were not carried out by the responsible authorities.
The association expressed its concern and mentioned that there are a large number of delays in the planned results. “There is a lack of communication and coordination between the designated institutions, which do not yet have a common vision of interaction for the implementation of the plan.”
Promo-LEX requested the Government of the Republic of Moldova to re-assess the reported activities and to take urgent measures, “which would exclude superficial implementation of future activities and increase the level of accountability of the authorities.”
Photo: peacekeeping.un.org
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