From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   Russia’s Crimes of Colonialism   
   By Casey Michel, Aug. 9, 2022, WSJ   
      
   Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov published an op-ed in four African   
   newspapers last month explaining why he was on a multicountry tour of the   
   continent—and why African nations should support Moscow’s invasion of   
   Ukraine. Mr. Lavrov blamed    
   Western sanctions for the food crisis in Africa and asserted that in contrast   
   to the U.K., France, Belgium and other European powers, Russia “has not   
   stained itself with the bloody crimes of colonialism.â€�   
      
   The idea that Russia avoided colonial expansion has surprising resonance in   
   the West and elsewhere. Russia never had formal colonies in Africa, Latin   
   America or South Asia. But the idea that the Kremlin avoided colonization   
   projects altogether—that it    
   dodged the “bloody crimesâ€� for which Dutch, Spanish or Portuguese empires   
   were responsible—is as risible as it is ahistorical.   
      
   It’s not as though Russia simply appeared as a transcontinental juggernaut,   
   stretching to the Pacific. It spent centuries conquering and colonizing   
   Eurasia, extracting local wealth and subjugating colonized peoples to   
   dictatorship from Moscow and St.    
   Petersburg. The difference is that other European empires colonized overseas,   
   while Russia colonized overland, capturing adjacent territory.   
      
   Too many either don’t know or ignore that Russia was, and remains, a major   
   colonial power. From the Caucasus to Crimea, from the Arctic to the Amur, from   
   the Volga to the Pacific, Russia’s colonial campaigns conquered innumerable   
   nations—decimating    
   local cultures, bulldozing local sovereignty, and engaging in genocidal   
   practices.   
      
   Nor was the Soviet Union—in Lenin’s description, born from a   
   ti-imperialism—much different. From mass ethnic-cleansing campaigns   
   decimating colonized nations, to targeted famines aimed at Ukrainians and   
   Kazakhs, to drawing maps of supposedly    
   autonomous republics that excluded disempowered local ethnic groups, the   
   Soviet experiment was, in many ways, simply a carryover of czarist Russia’s   
   colonial policies. And that’s without mentioning Soviet support during the   
   Cold War for despotic    
   regimes in African and Latin American nations such as Angola and Cuba.   
      
   While former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan and Moldova, gained   
   independence during the Soviet collapse, colonized nations within Russia’s   
   borders, such as Chechnya and Tatarstan, have been subsumed again under the   
   Kremlin’s dictatorship,    
   forced to provide cannon fodder for Moscow’s imperialism once more.   
      
   As the war in Ukraine makes clear, Russia remains a colonial power bent on   
   recolonizing regions that slipped its grip. Most European powers watched their   
   empires collapse, but one European colonial empire remains. And only one   
   European empire now    
   threatens genocide, and potential nuclear war, if it isn’t allowed to   
   reclaim a colony it lost.   
      
   Saturated in propaganda and the idea that Russia remains a benevolent force,   
   many Russians would be shocked by the idea that Moscow is no better than the   
   Portuguese in Angola or the Spanish in Mexico. It’s a symptom of Russia’s   
   â€œimperial innocence,â   
   €� as scholars Erica Marat and Botakoz Kassymbekova have described it—the   
   belief that “Russia did not attack and colonize, but liberated and saved the   
   colonized.â€� It’s also a handy defense when photos and footage emerge of   
   war crimes, mutilation    
   and attempted genocide in Ukraine, all linked directly to Russian forces.   
   After all, if the Kremlin fights only to save populations from Western   
   imperialism, then the Russians must be fighting Ukrainian imperialists to save   
   an oppressed population.   
      
   But it’s long past time for Russians to familiarize themselves with the   
   colonial crimes of their past and their present. Without the realization that   
   Russia was and is as guilty as the colonizing empires of the past, there will   
   be no end to the madness    
   in Ukraine. Until Russia has fully decolonized, Russia will threaten global   
   stability and security.   
      
   There are signs that an awareness of the need for Russian decolonization is   
   starting to dawn in Washington and other Western capitals. But the rest of the   
   world—including Russia itself—must recognize Russia for what it was and   
   still is. Colonization    
   may seem a throwback to previous centuries. But when a colonial empire and a   
   colonial war are staring us in the face—and when men like Mr. Lavrov tell us   
   to look away because there’s nothing to see—the least we can do is stare   
   back, recognizing it    
   for what it is.   
      
   Mr. Michel is an adjunct fellow with Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy   
   Initiative and author of “American Kleptocracy: How the U.S. Created the   
   World’s Greatest Money Laundering Scheme in History.â€�   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-crimes-of-colonialism-putin   
   ukraine-war-empire-eurasia-lavrov-africa-soviet-union-11660076835   
      
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