Russification Moves Further in Southern and Eastern Ukraine

There are reports trickling out from occupied areas of Ukraine that follow a historic pattern. It’s not one exclusive to Vladimir Putin. It’s one as old as the Russian Empire. They are in the process of imposing the Russian world, the Russian boot, on occupied areas.

The first is that they are forcing populations off the land. Filtration camps are not just about checking people's papers. It’s a demeaning process where people lose their electronics, think of all the things you have on your phone. They are checking them to see if they have any links to the Ukrainian National project, like they did, just not with phones, in the 1930s.

They did this as well in the 1950s.

Russia disappeared the Holodomor from history. They killed the head of the 1937 census that revealed the extent of death for the politically created famine. We know, because people don’t forget, and there are many books written by western and Ukrainian historians who have gone into archives and people's memories. That was a way to punish Ukrainian nationalism. This war is about that. It’s about destroying that national identity of a nation.

Of those forced through these camps, some are lucky. There is an underground network of Russians helping Ukrainians back to the west, through the Baltic states, and Belarus. It’s also part of that resistance to the Russian state we are seeing.