RT (Russia Today) published this story on May 10, 2014:
Gov. Yuri Odarchenko, 3rd from left, hold microphone as he gives his Victory Day speech to the gathered crowd of his city on May 9.
Kherson Govenor Calls Hitler a "liberator" while addressing Veterans on Victory Day
Pro-Soviet crowd boos; woman rushes up, grabs microphone
RT writes: Addressing the public on a Victory Day, the governor of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region trampled on the feelings of many veterans and desecrated the memory of all those who perished during the war against Nazi Germany by calling Hitler a “liberator.”
Kherson is in southern Ukraine, just north of Crimea. Its administrative center is Kherson.
Governor of Kherson region Yuri Odarchenko was booed by thousands including WWII veterans when he told the previously cheering crowd that the Soviet Union tried to enslave Ukraine, while Hitler on the other hand tried to bring freedom to their land.
“Those [Soviet] aggressors justified their capture not only by their desire to seize others' territory and enslave the people, but they also put forward slogans about liberating nations and people that inhabit the lands which Hitler hoped to capture,” Odarchenko told the crowd.
Painting his version of the events further, he challenged history by saying that “if you read history books, we have a number of documentaries on this, then we see that he [Hitler] first of all put forward a slogan of liberating people from the communist yoke, and liberating people from the tyrant Stalin,” Odarchenko said, sparking anger and outrage by the crowd.
As thousands yelled out “shame”, a young woman with a child approached the governor, stripped him of the microphone, before throwing it away. See videohere.
RT tells us that -just like Israel and its Holocaust - the Russian leadership continues to stress that any attempts to rewrite history and equate executors with their victims are unacceptable,
Russian President Vladimir Putin has numerously reiterated Russia's position on the Soviet nation’s struggle during the Great Patriotic War and said future generations should know the truth about WWII heroes.
“We will always guard this sacred, unfading truth, and we will not allow the heroes to be betrayed or forgotten – everyone who saved peace on the planet, not sparing oneself [from death],” Putin said at the Red Square parade on May 9.
Comment: I believe this shows us that Putin is one of the instigators of this historical view in the current time period ... NOT someone who is under compulsion to say it. In this he seeks agreement with the Western powers. -cy