All the data included in the texts of the exposition “Extermination War” is completely open and has been the subject of many publications in the press, social networks, etc. But unfortunately, to this day they do not form a coherent picture for the majority of people.
The main idea (also not new in general, but not yet implemented) of the exhibition is to demonstrate in a concise format that the process of Russia’s (under its various names) attempts to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainian identity have been continuous throughout history.
After many shameful compromises and attempts to reach an agreement, humanity, finding itself on the edge of the abyss, found the strength to unite to destroy the Hitler dictatorship and hold an international trial of a small part of the Nazi criminals.
The civilized world justly recognized the Holocaust, which cost the lives of millions of Jews, as perhaps the most terrible crime that must not occur again.
At the same time, this same civilized world has accepted as absolutely normal coexistence and doing huge business with Russia, which destroyed millions of Ukrainians through the Holodomor, terror and other genocidal acts and is directly responsible for its own numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity and terror, the victims of which are tens of millions of people of different nationalities in many countries of the world.
Even after another collapse of the empire, which decided to call itself the USSR for more than 70 years, Russia’s crimes were not condemned and an international trial of it did not take place.
Why? Yes, the presence of nuclear weapons is an important argument. But, in my opinion, the main thing is that Western society, like a huge part of the people of the so-called “post-Soviet space”, does not understand and does not want to accept two obvious theses.
1. The USSR is simply a new name for Russia, which stole its, most currently known, name in the 18th century.
2. The Russian dictatorship, no less terrible than Hitler’s, had already destroyed millions of people from 1917 to 1939 and as a result of World War II, started by Hitler together with Russia, actually occupied and controlled almost half of Europe for more than 45 years. This cost Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and other countries thousands more victims and countless moral and mental losses.
And since the 90s Russia has been planning, at least, to return these possessions, as it has repeatedly openly stated officially.
Moreover, since 1991, before the start of the war against Ukraine in 2014, Russia had committed numerous war crimes in Azerbaijan, Moldova, Abkhazia, North Ossetia, Chechnya, Georgia, and Syria. The result was tens of thousands of deaths, mass destruction, ethnic cleansing, deportations, and flows of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
All of these crimes by Russia went unpunished, which encouraged the aggressor to a new war.
Today, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have already become new victims of Russian aggression since 2014, we do not know when the war will end and what the total number of victims is going to be for humanity as a whole.
But I hope that the facts brought together in this exposition will help many people (both in Ukraine and abroad) finally understand: what exactly and how Russia has always done and continues to do.
July 2024
