“The main thing I want to say on Victory Day is that the Great Patriotic War is not over.

The current war is a real continuation of the Great Patriotic War, when we, in addition to the Germans, Japanese and others, fought with the Ukrainians. What happened in 2013-14 is a consequence of the failure in the 40-50s. We were unable to exterminate all the Ukrainians who fled across Russia. Saying Ukrainians, I mean those who are called Banderites in the Russian Federation. This name is conditional: present-day Ukrainian nationalism, having expanded to a huge part of the population, for the most part does not associate itself with Bandera, Shukhevich and others.

The problem is that the Soviet power was pressing Banderites by one hand and was consequently raising the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian separatism by the other. It is as if Russia during the CTO in Chechnya had been enrooting separatism there. Idea-driven Ukrainians not annihilated during the Great Patriotic War were offered a favorable environment in the UkrSSR and infected a lot of Russians who hate Russia now.

The SVO mission is not only to finish with Ukrainian nationalists and supress sentiments to them among the population but also to cancel, to root out the Ukrainian Idea. The State should recognize a mistake of the Soviet power (and acknowledge this) and correct this mistake. Russia should not consider this territory Ukraine, and its residents Ukrainians. These are SVO goals.

When no one who may let fly in the Russians remains there, then the Great Patriotic War will be over.”