by David Webb

This is just a short note on VE-Day, known as Victory Day in Russia, although they celebrate it a day later on May 9th.

First of all, it is nothing other than churlish to refuse to express gratitude for the Russian victory in World War II. History should never be falsified, and history tells us that the Russians were the main force opposing Germany, while the Ukrainian nationalists were on the side of Germany. Yet which of these gets invited to the VE-Day parade in the UK? It seems our elite are actively engaged in promoting a kind of cognitive dissonance, an alternative reality where the Ukraine was our ally in World War II and the Russians were not. Let’s look at the figures:

Andreev, Darski and Kharkova determined that the Soviet war dead amounted to 26.6m. This includes excess deaths from all causes and so does include civilian deaths and deaths from famine and disease too during wartime.

The 26.6m were 13.5% of the Soviet population. This is broken down as follows:

Male war deaths: 20m (21.2% of Soviet males)
Female war deaths: 6.6m (6.4% of Soviet females)
Male war deaths between 20-34 years of age: 9m (36.1% of the age group)
Male war deaths between 35-49 years of age: 6m (33.2% of the age group)

Of course, there are all sorts of nuances that can be brought into the discussion. The Soviet Union was a brutal dictatorship, but that does not mean we should celebrate the deaths of civilians. Obviously, the nature of the Soviet Union was not seen as a problem by Western leaders in 1941.  Communism is no longer with us, and we should look back on history with understanding, aware that a huge human sacrifice was made and that we in the West benefited from that. The fact that more than one-third of all Soviet men between 20 and 49 years of age died is an incredible figure. There is little wonder that to this day this remains a very important day in the Russian calendar.

Total UK war dead: 450,900 (0.94% of the population).
Total US war dead: 419,400 (0.32% of the population).

These figures do not compare in any war with the scale of the Soviet war losses. Britain has to this very day a good reason to thank the Russians. Donald Trump’s statement that the US soldiers were braver than everyone else (“We won both wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery or military brilliance”) is simply absurd. While I think Trump deserved his presidential victory in the face of Deep State opposition, he is undoubtedly a crass and bumptious individual. Russia did the majority of the fighting in Europe. No other statement on World War II history can change that reality.

The desecration of the Motherland Monument in Kiev

In Kiev, there is the Motherland Monument, Родина Мать or Rodina Mat’, which until recently had the Soviet hammer and sickle on it, commemorating the victory of the Red Army. The hammer and sickle were cut down in 2023, and the monument renamed Mother Ukraine, Україна-Мати or Ukrajina-Maty, with the Ukrainian trident emblem now replacing the hammer and sickle. They have done this to falsify history and make out that the Ukrainian nationalists were on the victors’ side in the war. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Ukraine is in many ways hallowed ground to the Russians because of the Soviet sacrifice in the war. In the war, there was not time to bury each soldier with honour. They were largely slung together in big pits with earth then cast over them. These were called the fraternal graves, братские могилы or bratskie mogily. The idea that the territory of the fraternal graves could be taken over by NATO is naturally offensive to the Russians. The Ukrainians are being as provocative as hell in aiming for that outcome.

In the end, however, VE-Day is not a day to re-run past wars. A large degree of forgiveness in the interests of peace is appropriate. That is why the refusal to invite the very victors, the ones who took Berlin, to VE-Day ceremonies in Britain and Germany, is misguided in the extreme. In the end, you can only make peace with your former enemies. We seem to be trying to create permanent enemies where there need be none. It is appropriate for all English people to consider the Soviet sacrifice on VE-Day itself—and to ask themselves why Britain is spurning any kind of relationship with Russia.