🕊️ May 9th marks a momentous day for Russia and the world — the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism in Europe. While the West downplays the victory and the USSR’s decisive role in WWII, Russia remembers.
🎖️ On this CrossTalk episode, Peter Lavelle sits down with Vladimir Golstein, James Jatras, and Andrii Telizhenko to discuss why historical truth still matters, why this anniversary resonates deeply in Russia, and how attempts to rewrite history reflect today’s global tensions.
#VictoryDay80 #CrossTalkRT #PeterLavelle #WWIIAnniversary #RussiaRemembers #NeverForget #SovietVictory #DefeatOfFascism #May9Russia #HistoricalTruth #EasternFrontMatters #NazismDefeated #RTSpecial #Golstein #JamesJatras #AndriiTelizhenko #GeopoliticalMemory #SovietHistory #VictoryOverNazis #HistoryUnderAttack #RussiaStrong
🎖️ On this CrossTalk episode, Peter Lavelle sits down with Vladimir Golstein, James Jatras, and Andrii Telizhenko to discuss why historical truth still matters, why this anniversary resonates deeply in Russia, and how attempts to rewrite history reflect today’s global tensions.
#VictoryDay80 #CrossTalkRT #PeterLavelle #WWIIAnniversary #RussiaRemembers #NeverForget #SovietVictory #DefeatOfFascism #May9Russia #HistoricalTruth #EasternFrontMatters #NazismDefeated #RTSpecial #Golstein #JamesJatras #AndriiTelizhenko #GeopoliticalMemory #SovietHistory #VictoryOverNazis #HistoryUnderAttack #RussiaStrong
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to Crosstalk where all things are considered. I'm Peter Lavelle.
00:25May 9th is one of the most important dates on the calendar for Russians.
00:30It was on this day in 1945 fascism in Europe was crushed. Celebrating the end of this war
00:36is no longer a high priority in the West. In fact, there has been a long ongoing attempt
00:41to understate the role the Soviet Union played in defeating Nazi Germany.
00:55I'm joined by my guest Vladimir Goldstein in Providence. He is the chair of the Department
01:00of Slavic Studies at Brown University. In Virginia, we have James Shatris. He is a former U.S. diplomat
01:05and a former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadership. And in Basel, we have Andrey
01:09Veloshenko. He is a former Ukrainian diplomat. All right, gentlemen, Crosstalk rules in effect.
01:14That means you can jump anytime you want. And I always appreciate it. Vladimir, let me go to you
01:17first because, you know, you were born in the Soviet Union. You immigrated to the United States,
01:22but the calendar is the same in both countries, essentially. In the West, they celebrate the
01:27end of the war on May 8th. They celebrate it on the 9th here in Russia, just because of the
01:32signing of it. It ended up being the next day for the Russians. So there was no other reason than
01:37that. But before the recording, I told you how the city is all dressed up and there's a lot of
01:44anticipation. There's going to be parades. There's going to be all kinds of things for young people
01:49and children. I mean, it's really, truly spectacular what you see. And it's repeated all across the
01:55country. I will imagine, my friend, where you live, that's not the case.
02:00It's absolutely not. And I, you know, by good sort of Soviet Russian tradition, like to get together
02:07with my friends on the 9th and recollect all our relatives who suffered. And when I invite my friends,
02:17non-Russians, they say, why? What's the big deal? Well, what is it? You said, well, victory day. What
02:23victory day? Day of whom? So basically, even educated people whom I kind of, you know, associate with,
02:30they, for them, it's not, it's not a big deal. And from what I understand, it was becoming less and
02:36less of a big deal with time that, you know, right after this generation which survived the war,
02:42they remembered both hardship and unbelievable Soviet-Russian contribution. But as time went
02:50on, the whole thing was kind of replaced by Hollywoodization of history. And basically,
02:56there was one big event in 1943 when Americans invaded Normandy. And that was about it. So that's
03:05that's kind of reality that myth and Hollywood slowly replaces it and concrete memory and concrete
03:12celebration, concrete commemoration is kind of disappears. Yeah, well, you know, Jim, obviously,
03:19we've had the Hollywoodization of the conflict, saving Private Ryan and things like that, which is
03:25all right. Okay, that's fine. But I mean, it's, it's, it's, Vladimir is right, but it's worse because
03:32there's an intentional downplaying of the Soviet contribution. I mean, the president of the United
03:37States just said a few days ago, it was the United States that primarily won the first and second
03:42world war. Well, you know, that's very Trumpian in his mind. It's not the first time he gets history
03:48wrong. As a matter of fact, he gets out, gets it wrong almost all the time. And that's very painful
03:53for where I live because there is no family in this country, in the Russian Federation that doesn't
03:59have a relative that passed, died or was in captivity during that conflict. It is a very,
04:07very important unifying cultural societal issue. But it is being dismissed in the West. They just
04:15don't want to admit that the Soviet Union played a positive role because they equate the Soviet Union
04:20with Russia. And obviously, we have the context of the Ukraine conflict today. Go ahead, Jim.
04:25Yeah, Peter, I think you're right. It is deliberate. I mean, I can't help but think back in the old days
04:31in the Soviet Union when a political figure was disgraced. They would airbrush him out of the
04:35pictures or out of the movies. They said a Soviet historian was someone who could accurately predict
04:41the past. That's sort of where we are now, where the political needs of the present mean revising history
04:47to make it fit. And I think that's what our political leaders do is that, you know, because
04:53in the post-Cold War, now the post-Cold War era, we have to justify this American hegemony.
05:01That means we did everything that was ever good in history. You mentioned not only World War II,
05:05but World War I. Frankly, our entry into that war probably prolonged that war and prevented the
05:11negotiated peace that might have ended it earlier and saved millions of lives. Well, World War II,
05:17we've got to revise that one, too, and even revise the history of the Cold War and how the Cold War
05:21ended, too, coming from the Western leaders to the Soviet and later the Russian leadership,
05:26which have helped bring us to the conflict we have today.
05:29You know, it's really interesting because what we do is we just have rewriting of history over and
05:34over again. There's so many rewrites right now, it's hard to keep track of them. Andrei,
05:39you're a Ukrainian, and only recently, up until recently, Ukraine celebrated very much like their
05:45Russians, colleagues, their Kazakh colleagues, etc., in the former Soviet Union. It was the entire
05:54former Soviet Union has the ability or the interest in doing it, they'll do it. But, I mean,
06:01as a Ukrainian, how do you feel about it? Because Ukraine was part of the great victory in 1945 as
06:07well. Yes, and I want to congratulate everybody on this victory day, because this is a great victory
06:13for not just the Soviet Union, not just Russia and Ukraine, but this is a victory for the whole
06:20free world, which the Soviet army and the Russian army brought by cleaning out the cleansing of fascism
06:26and Nazism in Europe. So, congratulations to everybody. My two great-grandfathers fought one
06:31of the Ukrainian front, first Ukrainian front, and one of the second Ukrainian front. One got to Prague
06:36and got hit with an artillery shell there. He's still alive, but he's still going through this war,
06:42and he told me about this. So, this is a great day for everybody who does celebrate the good
06:48against evil in this world, and the destruction of this celebration by the West today, the political
06:55destruction, trying to bring an enemy in this, trying to rewrite history in this. It's a total disgrace
07:01for me, as a Ukrainian. And for me, the Ukrainian is a total disgrace. In fact, today is the Kiev regime,
07:08which is basically undermining the support of the Nazism and facilitating the support of Nazism in
07:14Ukraine with Bandera, with all the Nazi heroes and heroifying them with the naming of the streets
07:21and banning the celebration of the Victory Day in the May 9th. It's just a disgrace. And I don't want
07:28my country to be this way. And that's why they don't want to support this regime in Ukraine today.
07:34And I understood that this is the wrong way to go in history, the wrong path they're leading my
07:40country to, because they're destroying our history, the history where everybody was brought together
07:44as a victory. And that's why the West wants to do this. They want to undermine and rewrite that our
07:53Ukrainians were part of the victory. Yes. If we take away this victory, it's a symbolism inside us.
08:00They're going to basically destroy us as a people. That's what they're doing. That's what they did
08:03with destroying Ukraine. They destroy Ukraine as the people who are taking away the victory they
08:08gained by losing millions of lives in the Second World War or the... Why not how they call it in our
08:16country? Yeah. You know, and Vladimir also is something I'm sure you probably noticed is that
08:21even when I lived back in the United States in the late 1990s, the New York Review, a book started this
08:27debate, a completely ridiculous one, but they did nonetheless, that both the Soviet Union and Nazi
08:33Germany are responsible for the Second World War in Europe. And that mantra is only continued to this
08:39day. I mean, and this is making it into the, you know, the halls of academia, that, you know,
08:44there is equal culpability. Go ahead, Vladimir. Of course, this is a false history. Go ahead.
08:50Yeah, it's in connection to what we've already discussed. Once the United States decide to assert
08:57its hegemony in ideological and all of the spheres, so they are victors and they are the good guys. And who
09:04are the bad guys, all the rest? So, you know, Germany is bad, Russia is bad, Stalin is bad,
09:10Hitler is bad. So then it sort of was like a matter of technique and a certain, you know,
09:15kind of unscrupulous historians who began to push this kind of narrative that the whole war was
09:20precipitated by Hitler, you know, Stalin or Ribbentrop, Molotov, you know, pact and so on and so forth.
09:29So ultimately what lies behind it is a very kind of unpleasant project, which is not new for the West,
09:35is of demonization of Russia, refusal to understand the country, its concerns, its history.
09:44So it's sort of rather than kind of viewing long 20th century as Russia going through revolutions,
09:51Russians wanted to find their way, Russians confronting this juggernaut of Nazi Germany,
09:58Nazi Germany trying to kind of catch up with England and France and America and pushing for
10:05Liebensraum, as they said. They were moving to Russia to grab Russian resources,
10:11turn Russian people in the slave. So to recognize it, to acknowledge it, to recognize that Russia
10:17was an ally of U.S. and was kind of a legitimate, you know, kind of ally, a legitimate partner of the
10:25whole thing. Nobody wants to do that. Only America matters. And consequently, Russia began to be pushed
10:31first into kind of, you know, the crazy communist country, then sort of almost like equivalent of
10:37Hitler. And this is kind of very unscrupulous. And that's kind of view started with some kind
10:43of maniacs in academia, but now it's probably politicians embrace it and school textbooks embrace
10:50it. And that's what school children learn. Yeah. But Jim, but if denying Russia's role in the defeat
10:56of fascism in Europe undermines or actually gives props to the losing side, I mean, because it's
11:07assuming that what Russia did was wrong, which was it, which is absurd because it was, as Vladimir
11:13pointed out, it was a collective thing. They were allies. They were allies in the Soviet Union. So
11:17they're undermining the true ugliness of fascism in Europe.
11:24Well, I think the Western allies, even then, were somewhat reluctant allies of the Soviet Union.
11:30As Vladimir pointed out, you know, we've seen this, you know, this drive to the East from the West
11:35on many, many occasions long before the Soviet Union came into existence and really now continuing
11:40after the Soviet Union ceased to exist because of the reasons he suggests that the West wants one way
11:46of the other, by hook or by crook, to seize those resources. Hey, for that matter, what's different
11:51about that and what Trump is touting is the big mineral deal? We're going to get our mitts on
11:57whatever resources happen to lie in Ukraine or whatever part of Ukraine remains under Kiev regime.
12:01I agree. And then we're going to continue with this line of thought. Gentlemen, I have to jump in here.
12:05We're going to go to a short break. And after that short break, we'll continue our discussion on
12:08victory in Europe 80 years on. Stay with RT. Welcome back to Cronstock, where all things are
12:17considered. I'm Peter Lavelle. To remind you, we're discussing Victory Day.
12:29Okay, let's go back to Andre. Andre, Jim brought up a really, really interesting point in the first
12:34part of the program. And I'd like to expand upon it. Unfortunately, as it's already been mentioned,
12:39and we have this Hollywoodization of the Second World War. Unfortunately, Nazis are made kind of
12:44cool, which I find very quite odious. But, you know, people like the uniforms and the regalia and
12:51stuff like that. But historically speaking, there is a lack of understanding in how Russia seizes it.
12:59And Jim brought it up. I mean, we had Napoleon and his coalition of countries invaded Russia. We had
13:07Hitler and his coalition. And now we have a Western coalition that is actually larger than what Nazi
13:15Germany had, because it didn't have the United States involved in it. So we have, so from the
13:20Russian perspective, we have centuries of the West invading Russia. And no wonder when the last time
13:29it was attempted, it was absolutely crushed in the streets of Berlin, that it be remembered. But there
13:34is no Western perspective of how Russia sees the threats coming from the West to this day. Andrei.
13:42Yeah. Today, we see how the continuation, again, to destroy, try to destroy Russia, take its resources,
13:50is continuing from the West. And it's happened throughout hundreds of years prior to this.
13:56And it's not stopping. And today, the West has joined with the United States. The United States,
14:01why has it joined? Because after the World War II, what it got, what got the former Banderas,
14:07Banderas, the former Nazi SS officers to work for the CIA, to work for NATO, they were the ones who
14:14the U.S. brought them and gave them amnesty to come and to join the governments. And the diaspora,
14:21the so-called Ukrainian diaspora, which was formed after World War II, was formed mostly out of the
14:27Banderas and collaborators of the Nazi Germany. That's why this situation is happening from the West
14:33today again. And it never stopped after World War II, continuation of the Cold War. And how do we
14:40see it today? In Ukraine, especially. It was brought before the special operations started by Russia and
14:46Ukraine. The banning of the May 9th, the banning of the Soviet films, the banning of the Soviet films
14:52about World War II. Everybody grew up in those movies. They have nothing against the United States
14:57or anybody else there. And yes, and promoting, promoting Nazism as something cool and better.
15:03And we have people on the ground, and older people even talking how it was even better under Nazi
15:08Germany than in the Soviet times, because they saw how much propaganda was pulled into their heads
15:12from the TV in Kiev. And this is what the reality is on the ground. The promotion and pushing into the
15:19Nazism, into countries like Ukraine today, to build anti-Russia, has formed the history that we did not,
15:27do the job right then. Nazism was a total destroyer at that time.
15:32Well, well, I can tell you, there are a lot of people around me that say the job wasn't finished
15:38off. It needs to be finished off. Okay. That's the anger that so many people have. You know,
15:43Vladimir, you know, maybe I'm too sentimental. I was trained as a historian. I mean, this was a
15:49tremendous, momentous event signing the German, the Nazis signing their surrender. And Eisenhower was,
15:59it was very, very assured, assured the Russians that there would be a joint signing because of
16:05the contribution that the Soviets had contributed to the war. I mean, this would be a moment for
16:10everybody to say, hey, let's step back. Let's not be consumed by Ukraine, by tariffs and all this.
16:16This is a moment we can sit down and have a quiet and learning moment here. And the Russians would
16:21very much welcome that. But no, you have leaders in the European Union that are being blackmailed
16:26and threatened if they come and celebrate in Moscow. I mean, what kind of message does that send
16:34about defeating fascism? The whole history of this, you know, kind of conflict is, you know,
16:41worth revisiting. We remember that you mentioned Napoleon invasion after, you know, Napoleon invasion,
16:48both, you know, Napoleon was fought on one side by Russia, on the other side of Great Britain.
16:54And the right, as these two victorious countries emerged, Britain got very, very nervous about
16:59Russia. Russia is victorious. It might move in Europe. It might mess up our plans of the
17:05dominating Europe and Asia and Africa and so on. So Britain became, instead of, after being an ally,
17:12becomes a rival. The same thing happened after the Second World War. Russia become a rival.
17:17United States got unbelievably nervous. They began to organize this NATO organization with Europe,
17:23which purpose was, you know, as we know, to keep Russia out and Germany down. And that was,
17:30you know, again, attempt of this Anglo-Saxon wall, unfortunately. And I'm not, you know, I'm not
17:36happy to bring up this concept, but I think it is this, you know, British constantly try to interfere,
17:43to separate Russia from Europe and from Germany in particular. And so these two countries,
17:49which are basically geographically very close, they could benefit from, from, from kind of working
17:54together. And they were actually recently, as very recently, they began to work together with all
18:00this good gas deals. You know, Germany turned into this really sort of, you know, industrial center of
18:06Europe. And that's, you know, then Ukraine comes along very, very handily. And again, this NATO,
18:11British and American strategist uses Ukraine as a wedge to separate Russia from Europe. And they
18:18continue to do this and they will continue to milk it. That's, you know, I hope that people in Europe
18:22realize that, that they are being played again against their geographical, historical, cultural,
18:30mutual history. There is a wedge to keep Russia out, Germany down, and Anglo-Saxon wall and domination.
18:38Yeah, but Jim, that's why we don't have security in Europe, because Russia is not
18:42an integral part of it. And that is the solution to Europe's security problems. That is the solution
18:48to the Ukraine conflict, is the, the indivisibility of security for all. And that is something
18:53Western powers will not agree to. They will not accept that Russia is a legitimate, equal
18:58power. That's the problem, Jim.
19:01That is the problem. And as Vladimir points out, the British have always been at the heart
19:06of this. I mean, let's not forget the Crimean War episode as well. And unfortunately, the United
19:11States has stepped into those shoes. I think early on in the Trump administration, people were
19:15hopeful that the United States can finally come around to be friends, or at least have a correct
19:20relationship with Russia. And I think that's increasingly unlikely, I'm sad to say. I mean,
19:27I think the big fear, and again, I hate to put it this way, the English-Saxon world, is that there
19:30would be a rapprochement between Russia and Germany, and Germany, of course, in that sense, being the core
19:36of Western Europe. And that terrifies the people who have this philosophical view of the world,
19:41that the sea power, the American or British sea power, can dominate the world. And let's remember,
19:46Russia geographically is in a much weaker position than it was during the Napoleonic invasion of the
19:51Russian Empire, or Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, in that it's Western frontiers than they
19:56were at that time. That what we saw with the breakup of the Soviet Union was kind of like a super
19:59Brest-Litovsk in terms of pushing Russia back from a defensible position. That's why people like
20:05Brzezinski says, we need Ukraine. Because if we get Ukraine, then Russia is no longer,
20:09an empire is really no longer a defensible state. And that's why we got to this war now.
20:14Yeah, I mean, Andre, I mean, you know, I hear all the, you know, I watch podcasts,
20:19I do a lot of reading, you know, and the topic of European security is often mentioned very
20:26academic sometimes. But you know what I found really distressing is that, yeah, I think everybody
20:33should have security here. Russia, for many, European security will be sustained without
20:41Russia. But without that, without security degrees for security for all, Ukraine ends up being the
20:48continuous victim here. And they don't care about Ukraine. They want to inflict a defeat on Russia.
20:54They don't care about Ukraine or its people.
20:56Of course, they never cared about Ukraine. They never cared. They used Ukraine in the
21:02situation. And the Ukrainian government regime, which sold out throughout the years of 30 years
21:07of independence, was selling out step by step after the first Maidan revolution, 2004, and then
21:13rapidly after 2014, the coup, they were selling out to the West of the United States, because that's
21:19where most of their money is. And that's where they wanted to be citizens of. And a lot of government
21:24officials of Ukraine are citizens of the United States. And we can see where their sons and
21:28daughters are during this war, living in Washington and Miami and et cetera. So this is the process
21:34of this war. The collaborators, the government of Ukraine itself doesn't care about its own
21:39people. So when Zelensky or his government is negotiating so-called peace, they're negotiating
21:44not peace or anything else. They're negotiating for themselves personal gains in this conflict.
21:50They don't care also about the people. So don't the masters in Europe and the globalists in
21:56the United States, they don't care about it. And I can add to the security in Europe. Why
22:02the Soviet Union did fall apart? Because Russia, the Soviet Union was the first step for security
22:07in your process of leaving eastern Germany. The 300,000, 400,000 troops that left eastern Germany
22:15were the first step for getting peace and security guarantees for everybody. The United States did
22:20not go forward ornate or did not go forward that those security steps and guarantees for Europe.
22:25They stayed and their bases are still today are in Europe. So who is the, who's the one who
22:30is threatening Europe today? Russia, which left and basically brought down the Berlin Wall or the
22:36United States and the West will still have their army bases in Europe today.
22:40You know, Vladimir, to finish up here, the dissing, the parade that will be on Red Square, what Western
22:51leaders and pundits, they don't want to see world leaders standing next to Vladimir Putin, because
22:57that means that their myth that Russia is isolated is false. Vladimir.
23:02Yeah, that's the message they want to convey. Everybody who challenges our kind of control of
23:09Germany and the unipolar wall is a pariah, is a despot, is some kind of autocrat, which is,
23:16you know, simplification of history. And, you know, again, attempt to totally kind of demonize
23:22Russia and not to take it seriously, not to take its concerns seriously. What is interesting,
23:27when Europe is worried about themselves, they right away go to Baltic states, to Poland,
23:34ask these people about their fears of Russia, and they then act that, oh yeah, we take it seriously.
23:41But do they go to Russia and ask Russian people how they experienced invasions and Western attacks
23:49and, you know, Western bombing? That should be considered too. Russian concerns should be taken
23:55taken seriously. But, you know, to take it seriously requires real overhaul of the whole kind of
24:01geopolitical approach to history. And we're not seeing Western leaders as being ready for that.
24:08You know, it used to be... On that very positive note, because we very rarely end this program on a
24:13positive note, I want to wish all of you a victory day 80 years on over the destruction of fascism in
24:21Europe. Gentlemen, thank you very much. I want to thank my guests in Providence,
24:26Bezel, and in Virginia. And of course, I want to thank our viewers for watching us here at RT.
24:30See you next time. Remember, crosstalk rules.