Germany threatens to remove Russian ambassador in row over WWII commemorations
Germany threatens to remove Russian ambassador in row over WWII commemorations
“We don't need a special invitation to honour the memory of the Soviet liberators and the victims of Nazism ... in publicly accessible places,”
No, Nechayev, you're Russian. Germans and, to a lesser but significant degree, EU citizens enjoy freedom of assembly and movement in Germany, everyone else is merely tolerated.
What about the other genociders? Germany???
This is insane. The Soviet Union had by far the biggest losses during WW2 in the fight against Nazism. Around eight to ten million soldiers died during the war, and if you add the civilian casualties on top of that, the estimates sit at around 24 million people. Many of those people were Russian and Belorussian. Let them mourn their dead. It doesn't matter that the Russian ambassador is a prick or not. I think it speaks volumes when the country that started WW2 does shit like this and it's not okay.
Russian representatives aren't being banned because of the behaviour of this ambassador. They're being banned becaue they are expected to misuse the publicity of an event where Ukrainians - the Soviet republic with the second-highest military and civilian casualties - will also be present
You've got two parts of the former Soviet Union fighting a brutal war against each other. You probably can't invite both sides to the same event and expect it to go okay. Which side do you invite? The one that didn't start the problem
Look, the country that was putting soviet citizens in concentration camps and tried to starve St. Petersburg out doesn't have shit to say about who gets to mourn their dead and who doesn't. It's straight up disrespectful and definitely not Germany's place to say anything. Like honestly, what's the worst the Russian ambassador could do? No one is asking to let him hold a speech. So what could he even do that's so bad? Start a fist fight with the Ukrainian ambassador? Lol
Not too sure how effective this is tho, as a solution.
It seems to me like a diplomatic escalation in the sense that banning the Russian ambassador from attending this commemoration event gives Putin something to instrumentalise anyways, at least for internal consumption. In the same time this move does not apply any kind of actual pressure on Russia. So I honestly don't know what good can come out of this move.
By "the country that started WW2", do you mean Germany or Russia? Because the USSR was also one of the initial aggressors of WW2. They invaded Poland together, divided eastern Europe between the USSR and Nazi Germany, invaded the Baltics and Finland. The USSR and Nazi Germany were basically allies until Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded.
I don’t think you get to play the “well you started ww2 card” when you’re trying your damndest to start ww3 lmao