Colonisation appears to have superseded ‘denazification’ in Putin’s military goals for eastern Ukraine
Last week a familiar figure returned to the main square of the seaside town of Henichesk. Dressed in a three-piece suit, and sporting his familiar goatee and moustache, Vladimir Lenin was back on his pedestal. A statue of the Bolshevik leader had been erected outside the town’s main council building. Flying from the roof were the Russian and Soviet flags. All in time for Lenin’s 152nd birthday on Friday.
That, at least, is the script. It is a model Moscow last used in 2014, when it instigated and armed a pro-Russia separatist rebellion in the eastern Donbas region. It staged pseudo-votes in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, both of which became “people’s republics”. The Russian army is now seeking to grab further Ukrainian territory and to expand the “republics”.after his unsuccessful attempt to seize Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
Meanwhile, a purge of Ukrainian politicians is under way. The mayor of Henichesk, Oleksandr Tulupov, was last seen on 9 March. He and his colleagues posed for a photo in the town park next to a statue of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet. It was Shevchenko’s birthday. It is unclear if the mayor has shared the fate of other elected officials who have been abducted.
This is the last sighting of Henichesk’s mayor Oleksandr Tulupov, fourth from left, next to the statue of Taras Shevchenko in the city’s park. Marina – a woman living in the occupied southern port of Berdyansk – said the city’s new overlords were planning to stage a Red Square-style victory parade on 9 May. “It’s like a terrible dream. I was a pioneer and in the Komsomol [communist youth organisation]. I don’t miss Lenin,” she said. “It’s the same scenario here as in the Donbas eight years ago. They’ve come up with nothing new.”
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