Bohdan Khmelnytsky

“ And it will never influence our minds again. Yet, we have to do whatever it takes to ensure that countries of the Global South also gain such victory. I know one more very important thing, the Russians will stand a chance to be free when they defeat the Kremlin in their minds. Yet, the battle continues and we have to defeat the Kremlin on the battlefield. Yes, this battle is not only for the territory, the peace and other parts of Europe. The battle is not only for the life, freedom and security of Ukrainians, or any other nation which Russia attempts to conquer. ”

“ Even through the impenetrable darkness, Ukraine and the civilized world clearly see these terrorist acts.
Deliberate and cynical missile strikes on civilian critical infrastructure. No military facilities. Kharkiv and Donetsk regions were cut off. In Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Sumy oblasts there are partial problems with power supply.
Do you still think we are one people? Do you still think you can scare us, break us, force us to make concessions? Don't you really get it? Don't you understand who we are? What we stand for? What we are all about? ”

“ Who develop plans for the genocide of the Ukrainian people and the destruction of the Ukrainian state. These people are inadequate. They have lost all connection with reality and are willing to sacrifice millions of lives to realize their crazy ideas.
And the second reason why Russia is openly calling for genocide and why the crimes of the occupiers that everyone in the world saw in Bucha are possible is the belief of Russia's top officials that European leaders will fail, will be weak. That Europe will lack leadership. ”

“ Never before had one man ruled so much of the earth’s surface. Yet there was something neurotic and fear-ridden about the Kremlin’s outlook which success could not cure. It has long been a historical theory that this psychosis may be traced back to Russia’s bondage in the Middle Ages under the Mongols and Tartars. At any rate, victory and enormous spoils did not give Moscow a sense of security in 1945. Buffer state was piled upon buffer state, and thousands of World War II prisoners were enslaved behind the “iron curtain” to build new Soviet military installations. ”

“ This year can be called a year of losses for Ukraine, for the whole of Europe, and the whole world. But it's wrong. We shouldn't say that.
We haven't lost anything. It was taken from us. Ukraine did not lose its sons and daughters – they were taken away by murderers. Ukrainians did not lose their homes – they were destroyed by terrorists. We did not lose our lands – they were occupied by invaders. The world did not lose peace – Russia destroyed it. ”

“ In 1991, millions of Ukrainians went to the polls to say that Ukraine would no longer be ruled by autocrats but would govern itself. In 2014, the Ukrainian people stood up to defend their choice for a democratic and European future. They’ve been living under the shadow of Russian occupation in Crimea and aggression in Donbas ever since. ”

“ People in the Kremenchuk shopping mall deserved security just as much as people in any mall in the world - somewhere in Philadelphia or Tel Aviv, or in a shopping gallery somewhere in Dresden. The world can, and therefore must, stop Russian terror. ”

“ They say Ukraine is not in NATO now. Although "the door is open". But for whom are these doors and where do they lead, if we are told that we will not be admitted.
War always shows everything people are capable of. Who is strong. And who is weak. Who is wise. Who does not see the obvious. Who is honest and who is a hypocrite. ”

“ If, however, it can be shown that the continuation of communist activities has a tendency to attract U.S. armed power to the vicinity of the affected areas, and if these areas are ones from which the Kremlin would definitely wish U.S. power excluded, there is a possibility that this may bring into play the defensive security interests of the Soviet Union and cause the Russians to exert a restraining influence on local communist forces. ”

“ The ideological pretensions of the Kremlin are another great source of strength. Its identification of the Soviet system with communism, its peace campaigns and its championing of colonial peoples may be viewed with apathy, if not cynicism, by the oppressed totalitariat of the Soviet world, but in the free world these ideas find favorable responses in vulnerable segments of society. ”

“ Russia's war against our people may end in victory of freedom much sooner than many in the world think if Ukraine simply receives the weapons the list of which we have provided. Any delay in providing such weapons to Ukraine, any excuses can mean only one thing: the relevant politicians want to help the Russian leadership more than us Ukrainians. ”

“ Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia.
They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass, to kill innocent people just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War. They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions. ”

“ Thus the future of Soviet power may not be by any means as secure as Russian capacity for self-delusion would make it appear to the men of the Kremlin. That they can quietly and easily turn it over to others remains to be proved. Meanwhile, the hardships of their rule and the vicissitudes of international life have taken a heavy toll of the strength and hopes of the great people on whom their power rests. It is curious to note that the ideological power of Soviet authority is strongest today in areas beyond the frontiers of Russia, beyond the reach of its police power. ”

“ But we have seen that the Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of long-term validity, and it can afford to be patient. It has no right to risk the existing achievements of the revolution for the sake of vain baubles of the future. The very teachings of Lenin himself require great caution and flexibility in the pursuit of Communist purposes. ”

“ He expressed concern over nationalist feelings around the birthday of Stepan Bandera, pointing also to 2 May 2014, when radicals in Odessa had burned people alive in the House of Trade Unions, an act described as heroic by Ukrainian nationalists. Those were reasons why people in Crimea had decided to move away from Ukraine. Donbass residents had not been as lucky: they had requested autonomy, the ability to speak their own language and honour their own heroes. ”

“ This orientation can be changed at will by the Kremlin but by no other power. Once a given party line has been laid down on a given issue of current policy, the whole Soviet governmental machine, including the mechanism of diplomacy, moves inexorably along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile wound up and headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets with some unanswerable force. The individuals who are the components of this machine are unamenable to argument or reason, which comes to them from outside sources. ”

“ We have always respected the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state, incidentally, unlike those who sacrificed Ukraine’s unity for their political ambitions. They flaunt slogans about Ukraine’s greatness, but they are the ones who did everything to divide the nation. Today’s civil standoff is entirely on their conscience. I want you to hear me, my dear friends. Do not believe those who want you to fear Russia, shouting that other regions will follow Crimea. We do not want to divide Ukraine ”

“ Yes, it must be openly stated that the possibility of a German defeat approaches in a tangible proximity, all the more so if the partisan movement for which Stalin is striving with every means, should spread over a greater part of the Ukraine. One should protest that in the South Ukraine such a danger does not exist because of the lack of swamps and forests. The bandit leader Machino needs to be remembered, he who for about 2 years terrorized the Ukraine and knew how to avoid all persecutions. One should also not place his hopes on the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. ”

“ His suite was far within the walls of the Kremlin, so deep and so well hidden, in fact that not fifty people in all of Moscow knew its location. For Stalin this had not been necessary, Malenkov thought uncomfortably. His suite had been secret, true enough—but thousands of people had known its location. With Malenkov it was different. He could trust no one—no one. He never knew a man could feel so completely alone, so helpless at night and afraid to sleep. Every time he saw Vladimir Chenkov's lean, gaunt face he went almost sick with fear. ”

“ World fortress. Which defends us and which defends the world. Feeds it by sending millions of tonnes of salvation by sea every day. Because it is Odesa Mama.
Kherson! You are heroic people! You have been under occupation for more than eight months. No news. No communication. Separated from Ukraine. ”

“ Across the hall came a man in a ragged soldier-coat and shapka, whose face was familiar; I recognised Melnichansky, whom I had known as the watch-maker George Melcher in Bayonne, New Jersey, during the great Standard Oil strike. Now, he told me, he was secretary of the Moscow Metal-Workers' Union, and a Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee during the fighting....
"You see me!" he cried, showing his decrepit clothing. "I was with the boys in the Kremlin when the yunkers came the first time. ”

“ A lot of things are always lacking in war. But what is in abundance is pain, dirt, blood, and death. Thousands, tens of thousands of deaths.
They told you that Ukraine is posing a threat to Russia. It was not the case in the past, not in the present, it’s not going to be in the future. You are demanding security guarantees from NATO, but we also demand security guarantees. Security for Ukraine from you, from Russia and other guarantees of the Budapest memorandum.
Today, we are not part of random security alliances. The security of Ukraine is tied to the security of our neighbours. ”

“ No doubt they thought it presumptuous of me to come to Russia and expect to model Lenin! They certainly did not seem to think he would sit to me. Kameneff had warned me that most of the artists I should meet would not be Bolsheviks, so that probably the students I met were not, but thought that I was. One of them, a girl and more friendly than the rest, said to me in French: “If you are a friend of those in power I suppose you will get some food; we are expected to work here all day from 9 in the morning till 6 at night without any.” ”

“ The Bolsheviks became a danger to our men. They sought them out separately and collectively when they could, talked and argued with them, and tried to fill them with Bolshevik ideas. When translated into Russian, our National Organisation became the Czecho-Slovak National Soviet! It was easy, therefore, to create a confusion. If our soldiers adhered to our Soviet, it was naturally argued that they should have the same ideas as the Bolshevik Soviets! ”

“ The chairman was a Ukrainian to the core, but he could not openly ignore our credentials signed by Zinoviev and Lunacharsky. He promised to aid our efforts but he disliked the idea of Petrograd "absorbing" the historic material of the Ukraina. In Kiev there was no attempt to mask the opposition to Moscow. One was made to feel it everywhere. But the moment the magic word "America" was spoken and the people made to understand that one was not a Communist, they became interested and courteous, even confidential. The Ukrainian Communists were also no exception. ”

“ They will do what happened in Bucha to your cities. To the cities of any country that the leadership of the Russian Federation decides is allegedly part of their empire, not the land of another nation. ”

“ The mere fact of being under the wing of a man like Kameneff, and bound for Russia, seems to make people talk to me as if I were a man. It is a great comfort no longer to meet people on a social or superficial ground. ”

“ I want you to become Ukrainians who feel what it is like when whole cities are destroyed, peaceful cities. Destroyed on the orders of those who like to live in communities - different, European, in your communities, in beautiful Swiss communities.
Who enjoys real estate in your country.
And it would be fair to deprive them of this privilege. To deprive of what they are taking from us.
And I want you to be as Ukrainians in the issue of business. Business that works in Russia in spite of everything. Despite this war.
Despite all our murdered children. Despite the people killed. ”

“ In the 1990s, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Crimea pressed for and proclaimed autonomy with wide-ranging powers. Unfortunately, the authorities in Kiev then started abolishing these autonomous powers and essentially reduced them to zero, centralising all the political, economic and financial processes. The same goes for southeast Ukraine as well.
As for western Ukraine, perhaps you are not aware that Ukraine gained territory following World War II? Some territory was transferred from Poland and some from Hungary, I think. ”

“ Zelensky has attempted to reinvigorate the conflict resolution process with regard to Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine and has drawn greater international attention to the situation in Ukraine’s occupied Crimea region. Russia, however, appears no closer to implementing a permanent ceasefire or to withdrawing its military forces from Ukraine.
The United States supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and promotes the implementation of domestic reforms. ”