Ukraine crisis: Communism victims organization calls Russia’s invasion ‘illegal’ and ‘a wake-up call’

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to “commemorating the more than 100 million victims of communism around the world,” on Friday called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “illegal” and “a wake-up to the West.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has emphasized how he wants to “denazify” Ukraine, despite the fact that Ukraine helped Russia fight Nazi Germany in World War II and its current president, Volodyomyr,Zelenskyy, is a Jewish president whose family members survived the Holocaust.

“The ongoing unprovoked and unjustified attacks on Ukraine by Russian military forces, described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a ‘special military operation,’ are illegal and contravene international law,” the VOC said in a Friday statement. “This groundless aggression has significant long-term ramifications for the U.S. and the West.”

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Russian state media outlets have repeated accusations of “genocide” by Ukrainian troops against Russians in Luhansk and Donetsk, the regions Putin declared “independent” while Russian troops were supposedly securing them last week as part of a “peacekeeping” mission, which VOC declared “an outright lie.”

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“The implications of this unlawful action are manifold. Most immediately, it is profoundly threatening not only to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity but also to the lives and futures of Ukraine’s people, especially those fighting Russian troops. Some rhetoric by Russian leadership suggests that Moscow may seek to remove Ukraine’s government by force and even to act against specific politicians that the Kremlin dislikes,” VOC said. “[U]kraine will suffer greatly.”