Russian prosecutors have asked a court to recognize crimes committed by Nazi Germany in the Moscow region during World War II as genocide, saying they believe some 6.4 trillion rubles (82.3 billion dollars), they said on Thursday.
It is not clear whether the move heralds a new financial compensation claim by Russia from present-day Germany, with which relations have deteriorated due to Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
But the statement, which cited the need to defend Russia’s national interests by restoring historic justice, appeared to be part of a broader effort by Russia to prepare its citizens for what it calls an existential war against the West, which some officials Russians have compared it to the war waged by the Soviet Union against the Nazis.
Prosecutors have asked a Moscow regional court “to recognize as war crimes and crimes against humanity, and as genocide against the Soviet people, the confirmed and recently revealed crimes committed by the German fascist invaders” in the Moscow region between October 1941 and January 1942.
More than 26,000 people were killed in the region during that period, they said in a statement, with Soviet citizens subjected to torture, theft, forced labor and expulsion. It is unclear when the court will rule on the request.
About 27 million Soviets lost their lives in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War, the memory of which is held sacred by many Russians.
Eight decades later, it was Russia that invaded Ukraine in what it called a “special military operation,” described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a necessary move to “denazify” Ukraine and prevent “genocide” against Russian speakers in Ukraine. .
Putin often invokes feats from Russian military history, both in the war against Hitler and those waged by previous rulers such as Peter the Great, to exploit Russians’ sense of national pride.
Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, estimates it lost at least 8 million people during World War II.
Source: Terra
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