Not a defeat, but a foreign occupation. How to deprive Russia of its imperial ambitions / The New Voice of Ukraine

Germany, Japan, and Italy gradually turned from authoritarian imperialist countries into democratic ones after the Second World War. In this case, it is important to consider the question of how and why they succeeded. In addition, if we are talking about these countries as successful examples of denazification, then there are still unsuccessful examples that also need to be mentioned, namely Germany after the First World War and Russia after 1991, when the inhabitants of these states did not manage to get rid of their imperialist sentiments. Unfortunately, one cannot consider successful examples of denazification in isolation from unsuccessful ones.

Item number 0, which is needed for successful denazification and around which there may be more discussion, is not just a military defeat that the Nazi country must endure, but a foreign occupation. Italy, Germany, Japan were occupied, while Germany after the First World War and Russia in 1991 were not occupied. And therefore, we are faced with the task of understanding whether it is necessary to occupy modern Russia after its defeat in order to carry out some of its transformations, or whether it is possible, perhaps, to do without it.

I think an occupation of the sort in Germany in 1945 is not needed. Two-thirds of Russians are concentrated in cities of over one million people, and in order to control them, you do not need too large a contingent. With a worldwide mandate, I think there will be a number of people who want to stand at checkpoints, and Ukrainians will even pay extra to get into one of those contingents. In principle, this is enough. Gauleiters do not need to be placed in every village. Controlling the main million-plus cities and military bases will be quite enough to fulfill this function of occupation. Not even occupation, but control of power. But will the world go for it or not? Whether there will be intervention to stabilize the regime, we do not know. Therefore, we cannot plan for the future, because this key issue has not been resolved.

After the occupation, the stage of formal prohibition of the regime that unleashed the war is important. If we turn to unsuccessful examples of denazification, then in Germany after the First World War, the Kaiser was forced off his throne, but this whole German machine that had unleashed the First World War did not disappear. These veterans, who were dissatisfied with the course of the war and believed that the…