Great Patriotic War—Who Was Patriotic to Which Motherland?

In the one war, valiant Russian soldiers fought against the might of Nazi Germany to wrest Eastern Europe out of the tyrant’s claw, in order to continue with their Russian-led quest for economic peace and equity among nations.

In the second war, just under half the Red Army consisted of Ukrainian peasants, who fought desperately and defeated the Nazis. More than 1.5 million Ukrainian soldiers received awards for courage. After victory, the Ukrainian battle-hardened peasant-soldiers were sent back to find peasantry things to do down in the backwoods of Ukraine.

In the third war, valiant Ukrainian soldiers fought a courageous guerilla war against the Nazi invasion, the Polish invasion, and the Red Army invasion. For a few days they were able to enforce an independent Ukrainian Republic, which was savagely put down by Russian forces.

These were all the same war, known more widely as WWII.

The Russian official accounts ignore how many Ukrainians fought and died for the USSR cause. War monuments are everywhere in Ukraine—statues, tanks, and airplanes—each reinforcing the message of how grateful Ukrainians should be to their liberators. Russian tanks and heavy weapons in the 2022 invasion often carry a spray-painted “Z,” a reminder of the black-and-orange striped George Cross ribbon given to so many heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

Ukrainian accounts are more concerned with how the Red Army, with all its Ukrainian soldiers, was deployed against the Rodina (the Ukrainian Rodina), to return the hated Russians to power.

Few say anything about the peasants with missing limbs and shell-shocked eyes. Their story is a great untold epic. Dispensable peasants fought for their overlords and their motherland, and were then forgotten. There are no Zs for fallen Ukrainians.