Timothy Snyder: If Ukrainians hadn’t fought back, the world would’ve been a much darker place

Posted On: April 5th, 2022
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Prof. Timothy Snyder delivers his lecture "Ukraine and the Future of Europe" in Kyiv on 20 June 2019. (Photo: pinchukfund.org)

By Sławomir Sierakowski

Originally appeared @Euromaidenpress.com

In an interview with the Polish magazine Polityka, prominent American scholar of Central and Eastern Europe Professor Timothy Snyder explains Putin’s ultimate goal, why Russia’s war against Ukraine is akin to genocide, why Putin has a more radical perspective than Stalin and why only Hitler had a similar plan, and why the fact that Ukrainians are fighting is so important for the whole world.

Putin’s goals and philosophy

Sławomir Sierakowski: What is Putin’s ultimate goal in this war?

Timothy Snyder: That’s no big secret: to destroy Ukraine as a state and exterminate Ukrainians as a nation. I’d like to make it very clear that such an idea is akin to genocide. If accomplishing that plan were to require – and that’s what it will require – physical extermination of Ukraine’s intelligentsia or exile to Siberia – then that’s what will happen.

Read more @Euromaidenpress.com

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Russian tactics: To drive the Ukrainians out of our territories

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