Defeated Victors
By: Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine
Kherson — Today is Europe Day in Ukraine. In a clear cultural and political break with Soviet tradition and in line with European celebrations, the victory over Nazism in World War II was commemorated here yesterday. The parade is taking place in Russia today because the unconditional German surrender was signed in Central Europe on May 8, 1945, while in Moscow, due to the time difference, it was already May 9. Emphasizing its European identity, Ukraine established the day of remembrance and victory over Nazism three years ago — with the Russian invasion in full swing — so that the sacrifice of its people would be commemorated in stark contrast to the exploitation Russia has made of it.
As I noted on these pages on December 23, writing from the trenches where it was waged, Operation Barbarossa in 1941 was fought primarily in Ukraine. Of the 7.5 million Ukrainians who fought in the Red Army, one in two died, and half of the survivors returned as invalids. With that enormous sacrifice, its devastated territory, and its cities transformed into battlefields, Ukraine, exhausted and annihilated, severely curtailed the offensive capacity of the Nazi-Fascist invaders.
Showing the artifacts found in those lands that were crossed, occupied, destroyed, and used as enormous battlefields, I reported — also in video — that alongside the trenches of the Second World War, the Ukrainians had dug new trenches to defend Kyiv in 2022.
The victory over Hitler does not at all demonstrate Moscow’s historical purity, but rather shows how it was able to survive a catastrophe that, if anything, it had helped unleash by using the blood of Ukrainians and other Soviet peoples, and then by canceling the aid of the Western capitalists who had kept it afloat.
Today’s Russian Federation has consistently built its cult of May 9th on a triple appropriation: that of a multinational victory that was also Soviet, erasing the Ukrainian contribution; that of its moral anti-fascist role, erasing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the partition of Poland, and the Soviet annexations of 1939–1940; and that of military self-sufficiency, erasing Western Lend-Lease, without which the Soviet war machine would have had enormous difficulty transforming resistance, production, and human sacrifice into offensive capacity all the way to Berlin.
Moscow cannot use the Second World War as moral proof of its historical innocence, because before being attacked by Nazi Germany, it was a co-author of the geopolitical architecture that made the war's outbreak in Eastern Europe possible.
This does not mean absolving Adolf Hitler, who remains the principal military aggressor on September 1, 1939. However, it does mean stripping Moscow of the narrative privilege of being “the victim who then liberated Europe.” The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, assigning Germany and the USSR a partition line for Poland along the Narew, Vistula, and San rivers and recognizing Soviet interests in Bessarabia.
Legally and politically, it was a preventive map of aggression, not a simple neutrality pact.
By signing that pact with Hitler, participating in the partition of Poland, invading Finland, and appropriating Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia, the USSR entered the war not as an anti-Nazi power but as an accomplice to Nazism; then as its victim, and finally as its victor.
The myth of Russian invincibility stems from the Soviet communist regime’s immediate attempt to erase the history and geography of events wherever it exerted influence. This included, unfortunately, postwar Italy. So much so that today it is practically the only country in Europe where “Kiev” (a transliteration from Russian) is still used instead of “Kyiv” (from Ukrainian): a coding ‘error’ considered highly offensive here, reflecting a persistent cultural submission to an obsolete and colonial mapping.
Propaganda says “Russia” when history often says “Ukraine”; it says “Russian people” when the losses were Soviet and multinational. It says “Moscow saved Europe” when, until June 1941, Moscow had cooperated with Hitler in redrawing Eastern Europe. It says “liberation” when, for many people of Eastern Europe, 1945 meant the transition from Nazi occupation to Soviet rule. In many Ukrainian cities, there are still dozens of signs reading “Communism = Rashism” and irrefutably documented historical references that link the criminal matrix of the current Moscow regime to the one that preceded it.
As several historians, including Roman Kabachij, have recalled, the Ukrainian tragedy was precisely this: being defeated, victors.
The Ukrainians contributed to the victory over Nazism but did not achieve liberation.
This is why rejecting the Soviet legacy is now dominant, even in institutional decisions. For Ukraine, 1945 by no means ended the era of imperial violence: it prolonged it by almost half a century. Deportations, postwar repressions, gulags, and the erasure of place names and local identities in the spaces between Berlin and Moscow that the American historian Timothy Snyder has called the “Bloodlands.”
Ukraine’s specificity lies in the fact that the territory — of which it forms a central part — was first starved, purged, and politically colonized by Stalin, then invaded and exterminated by Hitler, and then “liberated” again by Stalin.
Dekulakization and the Holodomor resulted in millions of Ukrainian deaths. The survivors of that genocide passed on its memory, only to be oppressed themselves.
As Kabachij explains, Nazism was judged, documented, condemned, and transformed into a legal paradigm of political evil. Soviet communism, on the other hand, emerged from 1945 sitting among the judges rather than the defendants. Thus, its criminal archive remained largely outside the founding moral framework of postwar Europe.
That failed Nuremberg of communism today leads to the hammer and sickle being waved at the Moscow parade, where another dictator pins racial Zs made from St. George’s ribbon onto the veterans of his imperialist war.
For this reason, in Ukraine, memory has shifted toward the European 8th of May, that is, toward commemoration, mourning, a plurality of victims, and a rejection of the cult of weapons. Ukraine has now adopted that as the official date of remembrance and victory over Nazism, while May 9th has become Europe Day.
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战败的胜利者
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道
赫尔松 — 今天是乌克兰的“欧洲日”。作为对苏联传统明确的文化与政治决裂，并与欧洲的纪念方式接轨的背景下，这里昨天纪念了对二战纳粹主义的胜利。俄罗斯游行在今日举行，因为德国无条件投降书在1945年5月8日于中欧签署，而在莫斯科，由于时差已是5月9日。强调其欧洲身份的乌克兰在三年前，正是在俄罗斯全面入侵之际，确立了纪念与反法西斯胜利日，以便将其人民的牺牲与俄罗斯对该历史的利用形成鲜明对照。
（图：Alla与我在伊久姆的战壕中报道，那里曾是二战战场，且在2022年俄罗斯人在那里留下了埋葬449名乌克兰平民的集体坟墓——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
正如我在12月23日从战壕撰写的本栏报道中所述，1941年的“巴巴罗萨行动”主要是在乌克兰进行的。在750万参加红军的乌克兰人中，每两人中就有一人死亡，幸存者中有一半成为伤残。凭借如此巨大的牺牲、被毁的国土与沦为战场的城市，疲惫而被摧残的乌克兰极大地削弱了纳粹-法西斯入侵者的进攻能力。
我曾展示那些被横越、被占领、被摧毁并用作巨大战场的土地上发现的文物，也在视频里提到，第二次世界大战的战壕旁，乌克兰人在2022年为保卫基辅又挖出了新的战壕。
（视频：Alla与我与从莫什春的战壕报道，乌克兰在二战期间在此阻击纳粹法西斯，2022年又在此阻止了俄侵略者——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
对希特勒的胜利完全不能证明莫斯科历史上的纯洁性；恰恰相反，这表明莫斯科得以在一场某种程度上对其爆发负有责任的灾难中幸存：它利用了乌克兰人及其他苏联民族的鲜血，并随后抹去了曾支撑其存续的西方资本的援助记忆。
当代俄罗斯联邦长期以三重嫁接构建5月9日的崇拜邪教：1. 将本属于多民族的苏联胜利据为己有，抹去乌克兰贡献；把其道德上的反法西斯角色据为己有，抹去《莫洛托夫—里宾特洛甫条约》、波兰的划分和1939–1940年的苏联吞并行为；宣言军事自自足据，抹去西方租借法案的关键作用，没有那些援助，苏联的战争机器将难以把抵抗、生产与人力牺牲转化为一路挺进柏林的进攻能力。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰扎波罗热州奧裡希夫的“星形”纪念处报道。二战期间，纳粹法西斯在此遇到激烈的乌克兰抵抗；在这里，自2022年以来，俄罗斯人虽不断尝试，但仍无法推进——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
（图：在我们撰写本文前几天，仍在奧裡希夫战斗的朋友们发来这张照片，正是在俄军轰炸我们留下徽章与旗帜的“星形”纪念处后不久。尽管俄军无法推进，却轰击他们得不到之物——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
莫斯科无法以二战作为其历史清白的道德证据：在遭纳粹德国袭击之前，苏联是促成东欧战争爆发的地缘政治架构的共谋者之一。
这并不意味着为阿道夫·希特勒开脱，他仍然是1939年9月1日主要的军事侵略者。但这意味着必须剥夺莫斯科从“受害者转为欧洲解放者”的叙事特权。《莫洛托夫—里宾特洛甫条约》将东欧划分为势力范围，划定了沿纳瑞夫河、维斯瓦河与萨讷河的德国与苏联对波兰的分割线，并承认苏联在贝萨拉比亚的利益。
无论从法律还是政治上看，这是一张侵略的预防性地图，而非简单的中立条约。
通过与希特勒签订该条约、参与分割波兰、入侵芬兰并占有北布科维纳与贝萨拉比亚，苏联并非作为反纳粹力量进入战争，而是作为纳粹主义的同谋；随后成为受害者，最后成为胜利者。
（图：Alla与我在2022和2023年为解放部分被俄罗斯联邦非法占领的扎波罗热州地区时所藏身并生活的地下室报道。这张照片摄于2022年的平安夜——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
俄罗斯不可战胜的神话源自苏联共产政权对历史与地理事件记忆立即抹除的努力，凡其影响所及之处皆如此。不幸的是，这也包括战后意大利。以至于今天在欧洲几乎唯有意大利仍普遍使用来自俄语的“Kiev”而不是来自乌克兰语的“Kyiv”：在这里，这种编码“错误”被视为极具冒犯性的，反映出对过时殖民式地理表述的持续文化屈从。
宣传机器在历史上是“乌克兰”时说“俄罗斯”，而在损失是而损失却是苏联的、跨民族的时候，却说是“俄罗斯人民”。它说“莫斯科拯救了欧洲”，而在1941年6月之前，莫斯科曾与希特勒合作重绘东欧版图。它说“解放”，而对许多东欧人民而言，1945年意味着从纳粹占领过渡到苏联统治。在许多乌克兰城市，仍矗立着多处写有“共产主义 = 侵俄主义”（Communism = Rashism）的标语，以及确凿无疑的历史资料，证明当下莫斯科政权的犯罪基质与前身相连。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰顿巴斯的一处地下室报道，我们曾在2022年顿巴斯大部分被解放时在该地下室躲避炮火，其他二战时的战壕也仍可见——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
正如包括罗曼·卡巴奇伊在内的若干历史学家所回顾的，乌克兰的悲剧恰恰在于：作为胜利者却被击败。
乌克兰人为战胜纳粹作出贡献，却没有获得解放。
这就是为何拒斥苏联遗产如今已占主流地位，甚至体现在制度决策中。对乌克兰而言，1945年绝非帝国暴力时代的终结：反而将其延续了近半个世纪。驱逐、战后镇压、古拉格劳改营、以及对地名和地方身份认同的抹杀，都发生在柏林与莫斯科之间那片美国历史学家蒂莫西·斯奈德称之为“血色土地”的区域。
乌克兰的特殊性在于，其领土的核心部分，先是在斯大林时期遭受饥荒、大清洗和政治殖民化；随后被希特勒入侵并灭绝，又随后被斯大林“再次解放”。
（图：Alla与我在2022年保卫基辅的战壕中报道，那里在1941年和2022年分别抵御了来自同一意识形态的两种政权——版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
消除富农和大饥荒导致数百万乌克兰人死亡。那场种族灭绝的幸存者将其记忆传承下来，然而却又再次遭受压迫。
正如卡巴奇伊所解释，纳粹主义受到了审判、记录、谴责，并被转化为政治邪恶的法律范式。而苏联共产主义自1945年起以“审判者”而非“被告”的姿态出现。因此，其犯罪档案在很大程度上未被纳入战后欧洲建构的道德基架之中。
这一“共产主义未被纽伦堡审判”的历史缺失，导致今天镰刀斧头旗在莫斯科阅兵中挥舞，而另一名独裁者则把用圣乔治丝带拼成的种族化“Z”徽章别在其帝国战争老兵身上。
因此，在乌克兰，纪忆已转向欧洲式的5月8日——即纪念、哀悼、承认多元受害者，并拒绝武器崇拜。乌克兰现已采纳该日作为对纳粹主义的纪念与胜利官方日，而5月9日则成为“欧洲日”。
（图：Alla与我在乌克兰顿巴斯一处名为卡米安卡的小村庄报道，拍摄于村庄获解放后不久。我们是首批进入者，当时该地仍有地雷。近80年前，反抗纳粹法西斯的乌克兰人也曾沿着这些道路作战————版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
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