Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine there have been people who have “understood”, justified, and even defended Putin, the most dangerous psychopath and the cruelest serial killer since Hitler and Stalin. After seven months of the worst atrocities against civilians since the Holocaust, and given that the dictator’s stubbornness in destroying and killing does not stop but increases with a great mobilization, the time has come for these people rectify and apologize. There is no excuse anymore.
Yes, those who argued that weapons should not be sent to Ukraine, so as not to prolong the war, should apologize, even if this meant letting the Ukrainians who wanted to defend themselves die, but they never denounced the arms shipments to Russia, nor did they demand that Putin stop the invasion.
And those who rejected the sanctions against Russia, alleging that the Russian people would suffer, especially the children, but have never denounced the real suffering of the Ukrainians, nor of the twelve million refugees, nor of the more than a thousand Ukrainian children killed or badly injured by Putin.
And those who mocked President Zelensky, anticipating that he would run away like a rat as soon as the Russians approached, but are now silent before his iron endurance and that of the long-suffering Ukrainian people, when they risk their lives not to fall into the hands of the Russian dictatorship.
And those who said that weapons from the West would go to Nazi gangs, with which they would commit attacks in Europe, but now they hide in their caves so as not to admit their mistake, given the results achieved with that military aid.
And those who claimed that the sanctions would inflict serious damage on the poor Russian people, but are now silent in the face of the destruction and death that Putin sows in Ukraine, especially against civilians, and in the face of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forcibly deported to Russia and scattered through remote regions and depressed.
And those who claimed that Putin is not the ultimate culprit in the war, but rather the US, NATO and Zelensky, but they silenced Putin’s imperialist desire, forgetting the Budapest treaty of 1994, and keeping silent about the expansionist antecedents in Transnistria, Chechnya and Georgia.
And those who waved the bogeyman of the “Azov battalion”, which committed alleged crimes against the inhabitants of Donbas, but remain silent in the face of the thousands of war crimes committed by Putin in Ukraine, many already accredited by neutral international organizations.
And those who cared so much about the suffering that the war would cause the russian people, but they have not said a single word about the kidnapping of more than a thousand Ukrainian children, separated from their families and illegally adopted by Russian families.
And those who warned of the atrocities that Ukraine would commit against the pro-Russian separatists, but are profiled in the face of the way in which Putin systematically uses torture, rape, looting, grain theft and nuclear blackmail as weapons of war.
And those who tore their clothes off denouncing that in Ukraine there were groups of extreme right-wing patriots fighting, and now they are undeterred by the misdeeds of the Russian group Wagner, recognized neo-Nazi inspired mercenaries, and close their eyes and ears to the “signings” of the leader of the group in Russian prisons, where they release the murderers above all, so that they kill Ukrainians.
And those who say that Ukraine must surrender, in order to stop the war, in the name of Pharisaic pacifism, even at the price of ceding territories, as if the territories did not contain millions of citizens, terrified of falling into Russian hands, in view of the atrocities that are taking place.
They say that Ukraine must surrender, in order to stop the war, in the name of Pharisaic pacifism, even if it is at the price of ceding territories
And those who continue to maintain, against massive evidence to the contrary, that the sanctions against Russia are not having an effect. They ask to stop them and say they defend peace at any cost, but they do not seem to care about the fate of Ukraine in that case, however black it may be.
And those who pointed to the Russian Communist Party as part of the opposition to Putin, and now they do not denounce the intervention of their leader in the Duma, demanding that Putin stop the special military operation and go to all-out war against Ukraine, including general mobilization.
And who were silent when the atrocities in the kyiv area were discoveredafter the liberation, in Bucha, Irpin, etc., with mass graves of shackled corpses, and they continue to remain silent when the same thing appears in Izium (Kharkov), with multiple testimonies of torture and systematic looting.
Finally, those who claimed that the Ukrainians forbade speaking Russian in Donbas, which has been shown to be false, apologize for those who now maintain a resounding silence about the way in which Putin is destroying the Ukrainian language and culture in the occupied territories. They burn Ukrainian books, they kidnap dozens of Ukrainian teachers, already missing or in Russian prisons, they replace Ukrainian curricula with Russian ones, and they send Russian teachers with the order to carry out a true cultural genocide. Yes, ask for forgiveness. Let them do it publicly. Let them use their parties and their media for it. And to whom should they apologize? Before the Ukrainian people, before their children, women and men, and before the families of the at least nine thousand Ukrainian soldiers killed defending their people, their land and their freedom.
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Francisco Rodriguez Consuegra is retired Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science