Russia-Ukraine War | Xosé Manuel Seixas: “Ukraine supported the Russians in World War II”

by time news

Eighty years after its end, people still hear about the Battle of Stalingrad, but the bad news is that it was the result of another war, the invasion of Ukraine, in which, among other reasons, the Russian side ha risen that of questioning the behavior of the Ukrainians during that conflict. When José Manuel Seixas (Ourense, 1966) began to write “Back to Stalingrad. The Eastern Front in European Memory” (Galaxy Gutenberg) this war had not yet started, and yet when he was interviewed he was not surprised that the conversation drifted from History to the present because, as always, the History can answer key questions that we all ask ourselves today.

–Did the result of the battle of Stalingrad mark the beginning of the end of the defeat of Germany in the WWII?

Yes, that is quite clear. Stalingrad marked a turning point both for the German-Soviet war itself and for the final outcome of the war. After the battle, the Germans stopped advancing and, despite the fact that they tried to regain the initiative in Kursk, the Stalingrad affair caused them such military wear and tear that, although it did not completely collapse, Germany began a progressive retreat that is no longer visible. could recover.

–The battle (or siege) lasted from August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943. It began in summer and ended in winter. Why didn’t the Germans withdraw sooner and why did the Russians try so hard to resist, despite the massacre of casualties they were suffering?

It is a question that is still being debated. In principle, what the Germans wanted was to prevent a possible Soviet counterattack. That was the primary goal of Hitler’s troops, but this goal was obscured by the Führer’s personal obsession with conquering the city that bore the name of the enemy’s leader, Stalin, who in turn responded to Hitler’s obsession with the his own for defending “his” city. It was a duel of egos.

–What role did the Blue Division play in that battle? Were there Spaniards fighting in Stalingrad?

–The Blue Division was not there, because it was based on the southern front. But there were Spaniards, especially exiled Republicans, on the Soviet side. Among them was Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri, son of La Pasionaria, who died in combat and in whose honor a statue was erected.

–More than describing the battle, your book is focused on its memory, that is, on how Stalingrad is remembered. In Russia it was highlighted as a “heroic act of the people” but how does German memory portray that massacre?

–Until the 70s of the last century, in Germany the memory of Stalingrad was humiliating. It was a defeat that could not be covered up, but from then on they tried to save the dignity of the Army, blaming the SS for the atrocities and excesses committed on the Russian population, but exempting the soldiers from guilt. Already in the 1990s, what they tried to propagate was that Germany had been a victim, first of all, of the Soviets, obviously, but also of its own leaders, who abandoned the soldiers to their fate. Strange as it may seem, in German memory a Germany is presented as a victim that is reflected in literature and cinema, even through testimonies written by survivors, in which special emphasis is placed on the suffering of soldiers. It was not for nothing that titles as significant as “The Army Betrayed” were published.

Xosé Manuel Seixas, in Santiago.


– The Russians received logistical support from the Americans, but that is not usually said.

-That’s how it is. They received war materiel, vehicles and meat from the United States, something they recognized by the bajinis but arguing that, well, after all, “we put the dead on us.” Meanwhile, and especially after the war, the Americans were not interested in remembering it either, and for this reason, both in their books and in their films, they dealt with the Pacific front, the Normandy landings, Pearl Harbour… about their own, well.

-It is clear that a part of Putin’s speech is dedicated to remembering the exploits of Russia in World War II, adding them to other reasons for the justification of the invasion of Ukraine. He has even denounced that the majority of the Ukrainian population supported the Nazis. Was this true?

-No, it was not. We are facing a strategy of narrative distraction on the part of the Kremlin that is not from now, that comes from the year 2000 with the ascension of Putin to the presidency of the Government, from which he cultivated as part of the propaganda of his speech the myth of the Great Patriotic War, assuming in turn the discourse of the Brezhnev era, in which, among other things, it spread thanks to the sacrifice of the Russians who, with their blood, offered Europe the defeat of fascism. As part of that discourse, especially since 2014 with the first invasion of Ukraine, the idea began to spread that Ukraine was ruled by fascists, and that these fascists were reviewing the entire history of World War II exaggerating the role of a small group of Ukrainian collaborators of the Nazis that they extended to the entire population of Ukraine. And it is true that there were anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi Ukrainian organizations but, above all, what there was was nationalist, and they forget that they fought, at the same time, against the Germans, against the Soviets and against the Polish resistance. It was a very complex situation but, now, it is not true that the majority of the population of the Ukraine in the Second World War sided with the Germans; At most, half a million collaborated directly or indirectly with them, but four and a half million Ukrainians fought as partisans and Red Army soldiers against the Nazis. And also Ukraine was the Soviet republic that suffered the highest number of victims among its civilian population with hundreds of its villages destroyed by the Germans. And as far as today is concerned, the extreme right in Ukraine is practically non-parliamentary.

– Is the possibility of the disappearance, physical or political, of Putin a well-founded hope so that we believe in a near end to the war? Or is there a deeply rooted “Putinism”?

–That is getting into political fiction. It is clear that the decisions in the Kremlin are made by Putin, who sometimes has some advisers. And it is true that, like certain sectors of Russian society, he considers Ukraine to be a part of Russia, or at least belongs to the Russian-influenced world. That is what Putin wants to do and there he finds complicity in a part of the Russian middle class. What would happen if, for whatever reason, he passed away or was replaced? That cannot be known, but no one guarantees us that his substitute was better than him.

– There are Russians and even Ukrainians who maintain that the Western media manipulate the approach to the conflict. That neither Putin is the devil nor that all Ukrainians disagree with the invasion.

– True, but also vice versa. There are regions that in 1991 voted for their independence from Russia, and Crimea itself was among them. What happens is that in Ukraine there has been a more or less well-carried coexistence between Ukrainians cigars who speak their language, and Ukrainians who speak Russian, which is why I believe that Putin made a mistake, the result of simplification, which consisted of confusing things. Because associating the Ukrainian who speaks Russian with the Russophile is a big mistake, and also with paradoxical results, of boomerang. On closer inspection, it turns out that Putin has done more to consolidate a Ukrainian national identity than 30 years of independence. However, I don’t think Putin is brainless; he is simply an authoritarian president, who does not believe in the legislative and judiciary powers, and who may not even think about annexing all of Ukraine at all, but he was convinced that the brutality of the invasion, which surprised us all so much, had with the objective of causing the collapse of the Ukrainian state, which would fall like a house of cards, so that a pro-Moscovite government in the style of Belarus could be established in kyiv. But he went wrong.

– Does the war in Ukraine discover that, in reality, the Cold War never ended?

No, I think that’s not it. The world has changed a lot after the Cold War. In fact, right now the big players in the shadows are China and India, two powers that Russia takes into account.

– But the spark jumped when Russia felt attacked when Ukraine announced its intention to join NATO. Or so the Russians claim.

–I think that was nothing more than a rhetorical resource, a Russian propagandist strategy. It is true that NATO, in 2008, was willing to consider the possible integration of Ukraine, but it was never seriously discussed again. Interestingly, another effect boomerang Putin’s maneuver in Ukraine is that other countries have emerged, such as Finland, which have applied to join NATO because they feel threatened by Russia. And that instead of advancing on a common European defense strategy, in which Russia could also participate, we are once again depending on the United States.

– When Western countries decided to send weapons to Ukraine, they wanted to achieve a peace that would not humiliate Russia. But at this point…

I think that this war is going badly for all of us. We have gone from wondering if it was possible for Ukraine to resist, to believing that Ukraine can win the war. In that escalation, a defeat would be the end of the Putin regime. At this point, it seems to me that what he is looking for is an honorable way out that allows him to present himself to his population with a “victory” through a kind of territorial peace, annexing, at least, Crimea and Lugansk.

But right now Ukraine is not ready for that.

–No, because now he considers that he can win. It is obvious that you have to negotiate, and that at some point they will have to talk, but I am afraid that with Putin there I see it as difficult, because if he makes concessions, he loses legitimacy and, consequently, loses power.

Is an overthrow from within unthinkable?

That’s not a realistic option. To begin with, because the Russian Army has never historically had an interventionist intention. On the other hand, in times of the Soviet Union, power was more collegiate: there was a president, but also a Politburo, there was the Central Committee of the Communist Party with its Secretary General and a series of influential instances, but it seems to me that Putin is alone in his leadership, and yet he has an undeniable ability to control the springs of power. The opposition is not really threatening his power. In addition, in the mobilization of reservists it is very careful:_it prevents the sons of the Moscow or St. Petersburg middle class from going to war, and who they are recruiting are people from ethnic minorities and passing mercenaries as volunteers. That is why it is said, and rightly so, that the Ukrainians know what they are fighting for, but the Russians do not. My impression is that this war can become entrenched and last two, three or four more years.

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