This opinion piece by ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin was ori­gin­ally published in the Daily Telegraph.

My inclusion in the Russian Government’s list of Aus­trali­ans sanc­tioned for “for­mu­lat­ing the anti-Russia agenda” will not change my support for Ukraine, my deep affection for the wonderful Ukrainian-Aus­trali­an community, or my revulsion at the illegal and inhuman war.

The invasion of Ukraine launched on 24 February 2022 revived the worst instincts of Soviet-Russian despotism. The defining char­ac­ter­ist­ic of Russian lead­er­ship in both Soviet and Imperial times was a savage disregard for human life. Indeed, one of the archi­tects of the Bolshevik Revolu­tion, Leonid Trotsky pro­claimed that “we must put an end, once and for all, to the Papist-Quaker babble about the sanctity of human life.”

Russian communism took human disposal to new heights. Half a million Soviet citizens bled out in the Finnish snow in the doomed winter war of 1939. Millions were hauled off to servitude building infra­struc­ture as slave labourers, living out their lives in squalor at the behest of the people’s gov­ern­ment. 300,000 died building the Trans-Siberian Railway alone. Killing quotas during col­lect­iv­isa­tion, show trials, blood-spattered con­fes­sions, the delib­er­ate appoint­ment of psy­cho­paths like Yezhov, Yagoda and Beria to positions of immense power.

The stag­ger­ing death rate of Soviet soldiers in the two world wars is not a testament to national pride or noble sacrifice but to criminal culp­ab­il­ity of its leaders. There is no honour in running at enemy positions unarmed, waiting for a comrade to be struck down before picking up his weapon or of charging at machine-guns with farming imple­ments.

There is another Russia though, which is why my sanc­tion­ing means something to me. There is a Russia of exquisite lit­er­at­ure and music. A beautiful language that is my mother-tongue. A cuisine that invokes all the soul and depth of a tormented history. A people for whom I harbour abso­lutely no ill-feeling. A country that scores of my relatives volun­teered to defend against the fascist invaders. An army that stalled and turned back the Nazi killing machine and whose men were the first to open the gates of Auschwitz.

This is one of the great tragedies of Putin’s war. The cor­rup­tion of the history of the Great Patriotic War by shame­fully equating the Nazis with modern Ukraine. But the greatest tragedy is that inflicted on the people of Ukraine.

Decrying this scan­dal­ous war, lending our voices to the Ukrainian nation and its suffering diaspora is the bare minimum we can do. Ukraine will prevail because its cause is just, and it soldiers fights to preserve a homeland that is right­fully theirs rather than to subjugate another people. Glory to Ukraine and let the sanctions fall where they may.