At the end of June, the Vienna police held a seminar on Ukraine with the KSORS. The association published some of the lectures on Monday on Facebook. Theses can also be heard that are used to justify the war against Ukraine.
In addition to the Viennese Slavicist Alois Woldan, who was directly invited by the police, at least three experts nominated by the KSORS appeared at the seminar, which, according to APA information, took place on June 29 at the Vienna State Police Headquarters on the Schottenring.
“Senior Police Officers”
An activist well-known in the Russian scene in Vienna, who after 2014 had dealt with “humanitarian supplies” in parts of eastern Ukraine de facto controlled by Russia, explained the nature of Ukrainian nationalism: How could it be that the Ukrainian state could insult other Ukrainian Bombing cities under Russian occupation, she asked.
“If you look closely at these theories (from the 1930s, ed.), then you can see that for Ukrainian nationalists, these unconvinced Ukrainians should be destroyed because they do not value their Ukrainian origins as they should,” the activist explained before – so KSORS – “Senior Police Officers”.
Criticism of “ideology of hate against the Russians”
The historian Yelena S., who herself comes from Luhansk, spoke on the one hand about the fact that the term “Ukraine” was hardly used in the 17th century, and also told about a controversial incident in February 2014, which was used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to justify the Crimean annexation had been used.
The psychologist Dmitri K. took a critical look at the Ukrainian diaspora and spoke of communication with the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence (DSN). For example, K. saw the emergence of an “ideology of hatred against the Russians” in the Ukrainian criticism of a poster by the Vienna Chamber of Commerce showing a Russian-Ukrainian couple.
Diplomat: “The outrage is huge”
Cooperation between the police and the Kremlin-loyal association has caused a stir among Ukrainian diplomats. “The outrage is huge,” a representative of the Ukrainian embassy in Vienna commented to the APA on Tuesday. He complained that state institutions in Austria had given Russians the opportunity to push propaganda.
“These are narratives that create the legitimacy to kill Ukrainians,” the diplomat explained. Because in this Russian depiction all Ukrainians are Nazis and therefore have to be “denazified”. In order to clarify the background of the seminar, the Ukrainian embassy also sought talks with the responsible authorities, according to APA information.
The Federal Police Headquarters in Vienna and the Ministry of the Interior initially left written inquiries from the APA unanswered on Tuesday.