About innocent/guilty citizens of the Russian Federation, about whom Andrius Baranauskas and Marius Laurinavičius write.
The German people resolved (and are resolving) their relationship with the Nazis not only through the denazification procedure and the assumption of full state responsibility, but also through what they call Vergangenheitsbewältigung - very loosely translated - "Work of the Past".
Philosopher Jorge Santayana's phrase "He who cannot remember the past is condemned to repeat it" is perhaps the main thesis of this process. The full, detailed, and specifically painful understanding (and hence the work) of their own nation's horrific past that Germans pass through in schools, literature, media, memorials, or cinema influences German politics, identity, and self-worth—and it has fundamentally changed the face of the nation over the past 75 years.
Successful work means taking full responsibility for your nation's actions, understanding the horrors it has caused, repenting for having done too little to change it - no matter how much you contributed or not. And only then can you move forward, evaluate other historical phenomena, analyze or criticize others.
I think this is the answer to the current question. Yes, there are almost no innocents in Russia for Putin's heinous crimes. Every Russian (if he is not a political prisoner or someone who has completely changed his identity) is responsible for the Chechen genocide and the terrible corruption in appointing a sadistic criminal to lead the country, for Aleppo, for Mariupol and for Kharkiv.
The political scientist Vladimir Pastuchov spoke for a long time, cynically and without emotion on the show at Venediktov's the day before yesterday about Russian Europeans, who keep appearing in the history of Russia and then the traditionalists deal with them one after another. Why are they tolerated at all? Because, according to Pastuchov, those Europeans create something good - it's culture, it's the atomic bomb.
Goes.
There are no non-collaborating and free actors or theaters — the art they create is a screen for the regime's civilization, or they raise cadres for the regime's main weapon, propaganda. There is no independent business - "Putins people" clearly shows that all business is used by the Putinists as a softer hand of the government. There are no safe places to express patriotism - Putin has corrupted sport before it was an art.
So when we decide to accept Russians, we must understand that we are accepting people who root for the same football team as Putin, enjoy the same music as Putin, who have heard the same slogans created for Putin by "Europeans" Konstantin Ernst or Surkov. And this is a much bigger problem than their direct links to intelligence or their relative FSB (although there will be that too).
This is a bomb, the same as the Russian fifth column in Germany with USSR flags picketing for the destruction of the Ukrainian nation. By the way, Lithuanian Russians did not do that, respect to them, as well as for Innokentius' statement.
I fully believe in conversion - but it must not start with lectures like "You don't understand our "special" country, "What are you - everyone is against Putin! (NB. No. In Russian sociology, there is such a term as "Crimean Consensus" - when after the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, absolutely everyone agreed with it - both "liberals" and fascists), "Why does the West not do anything about it, I alone can't do anything" or disgusting - "We are the same victims as the Ukrainians". Jo, he without a leg, me without Instagram.
It must begin with an understanding, preferably declared in writing, that the Kremlin is a criminally murderous regime that has bombed the homes of its citizens, destroyed entire nations, and it was and is responsible as a Russian or Russian citizen. And an apology to the Ukrainians and other murdered peoples. Nazism did not kill - the Germans did. It is not communism or Putinism that is killing today - it is the citizens of the Russian Federation who are killing.
Second, a naturalization process is needed. The understanding of what the culture of the gulag, "Vory" and gopniks differs from Western values. Maybe some Israeli experience would help here.
Third, I don't know if you have noticed, but the third world war or the second cold war is going on. JAV After the war, intelligence followed closely and for a long time all the people who escaped from the USSR. We definitely need double or triple counterintelligence capabilities.
PS it should be noted that Lithuania also has its own issue in the past work - related to the Holocaust. But here for another time.
Mykolas Katkus
The opinion expressed by the author does not necessarily coincide with the editorial position.
