The Russian propagandists, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and speakers at all levels, have already accused the Ukrainian Armed Forces of killing their own servicemen. That is why it is no longer possible to pass by and remain silent, twirling a finger near the temple. Whatever the reasons for the crash of the Il-76 plane over the Belgorod region, this does not change the essence of the matter.
Ukrainians have to deal with Moscow in this war… Let us turn to historical roots. The Russian people descended from tribes described as “androphages” by Herodotus. Herodotus wrote that the androphages had had the most savage customs and traditions among the neighbors of the Scythians because these people had had neither rights nor laws.
This is the deep essence of everything related to the Russian people, and civilizational development has not changed the Russians at all. Any society under the rule of Moscow is a society of violence. Everyone knows about encouraged violence in the Russian family, Russian educational institutions, public institutions, the media and cinema, the Armed Forces, and numerous prisons, law enforcement, and justice agencies.
Russians do not face any cognitive dissonance from their dissociative identity disorder because it is already included in their genetic code. Therefore, hopes for changing the Russian people and their perverted mentality and trying to find “good Russians” are a waste of time and effort. Only complete isolation and an embargo on everything will make Russians understand that they must respect all the peoples of the world and pay special attention to individual rights and freedoms and the inviolability of private property.
Let’s return to the centuries-old essence of the Kremlin. The Russian society has been violating the rule of law of its members. Needless to say, the Russians will never stick to the rule of law concerning citizens of other states, especially those against whom their country has been waging wars.
No matter how much one turns to the Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949, ratified by Russia, no matter how much one talks about the humane treatment of military personnel in captivity and the civilian population, this will never stop the Russians. There will be hundreds of Bucha, Borodyanka, Lyman, known and still unknown settlements where the Russian army robbed, tortured, mutilated, raped, killed, and shot Ukrainians to boast about their sharply risen status in the hierarchy of violence in their perverted society.
It is crucial to delve into the cause-and-effect relationships of the cult of violence and mental sadistic personality disorder of an entire people that has progressed over many centuries, for which it has long been the norm of their life and behavior to kill and torture for fun. It is worth recalling that more than 86% of the Russian population has supported the war against Ukraine.
One should also remember the wars of the ancestors of today’s Russians against Ukraine. Thus, back in 1169, Grand Prince of Vladimir Andrey Bogolyubsky captured and plundered Kyiv by a coalition of 11 princes. The city was destroyed and burnt to the ground; civilians were raped, tortured, and murdered; their property was transported to Moscow. The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church openly declares: “An appeal to the feat and life of Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky is one of the wonderful ways to return national self-respect to the people”. Speaking about the prince as a politician guided by the Orthodox faith, the Moscow clergy notes the relevance of his experience in the present day.
In the summer of 1482, Moscow Prince Ivan III Vasilyevich sent the Crimean Khan Meñli I Geray an embassy, valuable gifts, and a significant amount of money with a proposal to attack Ukrainian lands. Meñli I Geray conquered the city, burnt cathedrals and churches, and took many people prisoner. As a gift to Moscow Prince Ivan III Vasilyevich, the Khan sent looted goods from Kyiv cathedrals and churches, including an iconostasis, a golden cup, and a paten from St. Sophia Cathedral. Having concluded a new alliance with the Crimean Khan, Moscow made a series of joint campaigns against the Kyiv, Podilia, Volyn, and Chernihiv regions in 1492.
When the Ukrainian lands were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, there was a war of 1609-1618, including the siege of Moscow, and the Smolensk War of 1632-1634. All these devastating wars led to an increase in the self-awareness of the Ukrainian people, at that time divided between Poland and Moscow, and the formation of the Cossack Hetmanate.
Moscow decided to destroy the Ukrainian nation after 1654. Thus, paying special attention to the history of the Russian wars against Ukraine is significant.
The Moscow-Ukrainian War (1658-1659) was a war between the Cossack state under Hetman Ivan Vygovsky and the Tsardom of Muscovy, which sent troops of princes Trubetskoy and Romodanovsky to Ukraine.
The Moscow-Ukrainian War (1660-1663) was the war led by Yurii Khmelnytsky against the Tsardom of Muscovy during the Moscow-Polish War of 1654-1667.
The army of the Tsardom of Muscovy surrendered after the battle of Chudniv on October 23, 1660. The Russian voivode refused to continue waging the war against Ukraine on behalf of the Tsar. However, one should always remember that agreements with Russia have no sense, because Russia will immediately violate them at the first opportunity.
The Moscow-Ukrainian War (1674-1676) was the war led by Petro Doroshenko during the Moscow-Polish War of 1654-1667 and the Moscow-Turkish War of 1676-1681
The Moscow-Ukrainian War (1708-1709) was the war led by Ivan Mazepa during the Great Northern War.
The Baturyn massacre, also known as the sack of Baturyn or genocide in Baturyn, was the punitive actions of Moscow troops to capture and destroy Baturyn and its inhabitants, carried out on November 2, 1708. Moscow troops massacred all residents of the town, regardless of age and gender. According to various estimates, from 11 to 15 thousand Baturyn residents died. The city itself was completely plundered, including all Orthodox churches, the town was burnt, and the churches were destroyed by the order of Field Marshal of the Russian Imperial Army Alexander Menshikov.
The bloody events in Baturyn are confirmed by many documentary sources:
According to Bantysh-Kamensky (1737-1814):
“On November 3, he [Menshikov] entered Baturyn with a sword in his hand and cut all the inhabitants there, including infants, with the tip of his sword. A small part of the garrison escaped; the beautiful palace, owned by Mazepa and decorated according to Polish custom, thirty mills, and grain stores made for the enemy, were then turned to ashes; all the property he had left in Baturyn and forty guns, except for mortars, went to the winners.”
French historian Jean-Benoit Scherer (1741-1824) wrote the following:
“The city was taken and plundered. What the soldiers could not take with them became the prey of the fire, which devoured part of the city. The fortification was destroyed to the ground, and the inhabitants of the city died and were subjected to severe torture: some were impaled, others were hanged or quartered.”
According to the Swedish historian Frixell, Menshikov ordered the corpses of the Cossacks to be crucified on rafts and floated down the Seim River so that the population of the Hetmanate would see the fate that befell Baturyn. According to information provided by the naval engineer Captain John Perry, who served in St. Petersburg and visited the court of Peter I, Menshikov had hanged the governor and impaled several people. Ukraine became dependent on the Tsardom of Muscovy after this battle.
Then a new stage of Moscow’s war against the Ukrainian people began, in which there were three significant periods:
1768 – Suppression of the Haydamak uprising.
1775 – Liquidation of the Zaporizhian Sich.
1855 – The Russian-Turkish War.
The Haydamak uprising against the Russians was defeated, but the actions made by the Russian beasts did not change. Ivan Gonta was executed. Maksym Zalizniak, Mykyta Shvachka, and other participants of the uprising, who were residents of Left Bank Ukraine and Zaporizhia, were tried by the Russians. They were sentenced to corporal punishment and exile to lifelong hard labor in Nerchinsk (Siberia).
The liquidation of the Zaporizhian Sich was an almost fatal blow to Ukrainian identity. Pursuing the idea of annihilating the active part of the Ukrainian population with enormous combat experience and traditions, the Russian Empress Catherine II decided to kill two birds with one stone. Zaporizhian Cossacks took part in campaigns of the Russian army and witnessed the cruelty of Russian troops during assaults on enemy settlements. The imperial house thus solved two problems: it disposed of the active part of the population capable of starting a people’s liberation war and conquered new lands with its hands.
At the beginning of June 1775, Russian troops under the command of General Peter Tekelia, returning from the Ottoman campaign, suddenly surrounded the Sich. There were only a few thousand Cossacks in the Sich at that time; the rest went to palankas and winter huts after the war. There were significant forces under the command of Peter Tekelia, namely ten infantry and 13 Don Cossack regiments, eight regiments of regular cavalry, reinforced by 20 hussar and 17 pike squadrons. Peter Tekelia announced an imperial decree on the liquidation of the Zaporizhian Sich. On June 16, 1775, Russian troops destroyed the Sich, and all property and Cossack archives were taken to St. Petersburg. The Kish Otaman Petro Kalnyshevsky was accused of treason and sentenced to hard labor.
The Ukrainian people rose against Russian oppression in 1855. The uprising arose purely on social grounds, which resulted in a “universal” desire to restore the Cossacks as a military formation. The Russian government sent regular troops to suppress the Cossacks, leading to rivers of blood and mountains of corpses, torture, executions, and robberies.
1917 was the collapse of the Russian Empire. Having captured several cities in western Ukraine, the Russian army looted and killed local civilians. The Russian Bolsheviks tried to return Ukraine to the renewed Russian empire. The result of these actions was the Red Terror, leading to mass murders and robberies, mass torture, rape, the first Holodomor, millions of civilian casualties, and total emigration of refugees. It was the struggle of the Ukrainian people that made it possible for Poland and Finland to escape from the bloody clutches of the Russian hegemon and restore their statehood.
The Bolshevik terror did not weaken after the capture of Ukraine. Although there were no active hostilities, the freedom-loving Ukrainian people still sought to overcome the hated Soviet regime. During the period 1932-1933, more than 5,000 peasant uprisings caused by the policy of collectivization took place on the territory of Ukraine. According to various estimates, the number of victims of the Great Ukrainian Famine, also known as the Holodomor, varies from 8 to 12 million Ukrainians.
Only 7 years passed, and the country of the Soviets decided to start World War II together with the Nazi regime. The Soviet administration was established on the territory of West Ukraine. The population of the western regions of Ukraine was subjected to atrocities and torture carried out by the Russians. The Ukrainian genocide gained industrial momentum. At the same time in 1940, Russia shot almost 22,000 Polish officers prisoners of war in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. The Soviet Union tried to accuse German units of this crime. Then there was no less cynical Moscow-planned plane crash of the Polish TU-154 near Smolensk, in 2010.
During World War II, Russian soldiers blew up historical monuments, bridges, and houses with people, sticking to the scorched-earth policy. As the Red Army retreated, the Russian army blew up the American-built Dnipro Hydroelectric Station, burying hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian residents living downstream underwater. The same method was used to destroy the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023.
Russia tried to start a war in Crimea in 1992-1994. However, things did not go according to plan. Ten years later, in 2003, Russia tried to start a conflict on the island of Tuzla. In 2014, the Kremlin annexed Crimea and invaded Donbas, starting a war. In 2022, Russia decided to launch a large-scale invasion. It is worth remembering the Ukrainian prisoners of war in Olenivka near Donetsk, where the Russian soldiers cut off the genitals of Ukrainians, tortured them with hunger and electric shock, subjected them to sexual violence, and exerted moral pressure. Then there was the beheading on live television and the shooting of an unarmed Ukrainian soldier for greeting “Glory to Ukraine!”.
No one can give an unambiguous answer to the crash of the IL-76 plane in the sky over Yablonovo, Belgorod Region, without an international investigation. Who or what was this plane carrying? Were these Ukrainian prisoners of war or ammunition and missiles for the Russian army to continue hostilities? It is worth remembering the Malaysian Boeing MH17. The victims and their belongings were lying in the field. Why did the FSB cordon off the area, driving out all the rescuers? Who shot down this plane? Did the shelling of Kharkiv carried out by the Russians with the S-300 and S-400 systems become a friendly fire against the IL-76? Why was there no agreement on the exchange? This crash is very similar to the activities carried out by the Russian special services, avenging the downed A-50 and IL-22.
Constantly violating all conceivable and unimaginable norms of international humanitarian law, laws, and customs of war, the Russian army must bear personal responsibility for the war crimes and crimes against humanity, for the centuries-old genocide against the Ukrainian people.
