Interview with German national daily newspaper “Die Welt”
At the end of February 2025, the head of the UCHS, Anatolii Podolskyi, gave a lengthy interview to the well-known European, German newspaper Die Welt. The interview was conducted by Austrian journalist Stefan Schocher.
In his interview, the scholar highlighted that it is quite common to compare the development of current events with the beginning of the Second World War. While there are notable similarities, there are also significant differences. The scholar observed that, in his opinion, putin and his regime currently enjoy far greater support within russian society compared to the Hitler regime during its time.
In late 1930s Germany and Austria, there was active resistance to the Nazi regime, both before and during World War II. However, such resistance is virtually non-existent in modern russia. As a result, this war cannot solely be attributed to a dictator or a totalitarian regime—it also implicates russian society. Russians may support, fear, or even despite putin, but over the past decade, they have done nothing to stop him.
And what about us? We are a multicultural nation of Ukrainians, Poles, Tatars, Jews, and Russians. As Ukrainians, we stand united and together—much like the Jews during Hitler's time. Of course, the situations are not identical. However, Chernihiv, Yahidne, the Kharkiv region, and Izium have become symbols of genocide today—or, more precisely, the mass murder of Ukrainian citizens.
There are also parallels with the Second World War, particularly with Czechoslovakia in 1938. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country, yet Nazi Germany claimed it needed to protect the German-speaking population within its borders. This is eerily similar to the arguments made by the putin regime today—a narrative that is, of course, a complete lie.
A. Podolskyi also emphasized that the Stalinist regime hated Ukrainians—their national movement, literature, and culture—and despised Jewish culture. Anti-Ukrainianism, anti-Semitism, and Ukrainophobia were deeply intertwined. In Kharkiv’s Izium district, mass graves uncovered after the city’s liberation mirror the atrocities of the Holodomor in 1932-33, when the NKVD deliberately targeted millions of Ukrainians. The same villages have witnessed horrors both then and now. Putin's inherited hatred for Ukrainian culture from Stalin remains evident today.
[Full text of the interview]
[Interview published in the Austrian edition of Wiener Zeitung]
