THE CRITICAL NEED TO UNDERSTAND
It is rarely mentioned in US history or media that Russia – the Soviet Union – lost an estimated 27 million people to the Nazis in World War II. This is over 50 times more deaths than America suffered with the loss of 420,000. Few were the Russian families that did not grieve. It is also rarely mentioned in US history or media that Russia was far more instrumental in defeating the Nazis than America.
Quoting Irish journalist Finnian Cunningham:
“Still, let’s not forget that the Soviet Union had been battling the Third Reich for three years before the British and American landings in Western Europe. Stalin had pleaded with Roosevelt and Churchill to open the Western front much sooner, to no avail.
It was the Soviet Red Army that inflicted the crucial blow to Hitler’s regime claiming 90 percent of Wehrmacht’s losses in countless heroic battles until the final conquest of Berlin. The iconic hoisting of the Red Flag over the Reichstag was a fitting symbol of who was the principal victor over Nazi Germany.
No disrespect to the sacrifices of the American, British and other Allied troops in Normandy, but their action was a sideshow to the main event of Soviet triumph and sacrifice – with more than 27 million Soviet citizens, some 10 million of them being soldiers, having been killed in the war compared with less than one million U.S. and British troops.”
This past June 6th was the 80th anniversary of the heroic D-Day assault against the German army on the beaches of Normandy by British and American troops. It was indeed heroic, and these men deserve the greatest honor and respect. Many brave souls died. Yet it has been forgotten in America that at the time of this invasion, Russia (the Soviet Union) and the U.S. were allies. The D-Day assault in Normandy was coordinated with Russian actions on Germany’s eastern front.
This year, for the first time since 1944, Russian leadership was not invited, indeed was not permitted, to attend the anniversary of D-Day in Normandy. This, of course, is because of the war in Ukraine. However, U.S. President Joe Biden gave a speech at the event. Shamefully using the sacrifice of the men who suffered on those beaches so long ago as a platform to further his own political agenda and to justify America’s expansionist aggression in Eastern Europe, Joe Biden’s comments not only dishonored the men who gave their lives on those beaches, they were an insult to the people of Russia grotesque beyond description.
Quoting President Biden regarding the allied assault in Normandy:
“They breached Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. And they turned, in that one effort, the tide of war that began to save the world.” “A feared dictator [who] had conquered a continent had finally met his match. Because of them, the war turned.” “They stood against Hitler’s aggression.”
Giving the deepest respect to the men who suffered so terribly on those beaches and whose efforts did accomplish so much, President Biden’s comments completely whitewash the greater historical record. Again, quoting Cunningham:
“Any honest historian, regardless of nationality, would contend the tide of war was turned during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and numerous other battles on the Eastern Front which decimated the fearsome Nazi war machine.”
But it is next where President Biden’s comments become truly repugnant:
“Does anyone doubt — does anyone doubt that they [the U.S. troops in the D-Day landings] would want America to stand up against Putin’s aggression here in Europe today?”
“As we gather here today, it’s not just to honor those who showed such remarkable bravery on that day, June 6th, 1944. It’s to listen to the echoes of their voices, to hear them, because they are summoning us, and they’re summoning us now.”
“They’re asking us to do our job: to protect freedom in our time, to defend democracy, to stand up to aggression abroad and at home, to be part of something bigger than ourselves.”
In these ugly words, ignoring the unfathomable loss of 27 million loved ones by the people of Russia, President Biden is effectively equating them to the Nazis, and calling their deeply respected President Vladimir Putin, Hitler. As stated earlier, the insult to the Russian people, who suffered far beyond anything Joe Biden can possibly imagine, is beyond description.
President Biden’s insult to the Russians is especially sickening given that it was under his supervision as vice-president in 2014 that the U.S. orchestrated the Maidan Coup in Ukraine that overthrew the democratically elected, anti-NATO, President Victor Yanukovich, and installed a neo-Nazi regime and the openly Nazi military organization called the Azov Battalion.
Russia and Ukraine were not enemies until the U.S. made them enemies. Tragically, Russia is once again fighting Nazis. But these Nazis are not from Germany. They are the product of America.