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China's global investment tentacles have reached South American railways, where Chinese firms are "silent" partners in expanding rail networks, through financing or sale of rolling stock.
Workers in China load a metro train car that is to be shipped to Brazil
SANTIAGO — From public mistrust of its goals to suspicions of its ties to corruption rackets, Chinese investment in Latin America's railway sector has gotten off to a shaky start. Over the past decade, the Asian superpower may have suffered from its unfamiliarity with regional and domestic policies, but it's going full steam ahead on investment in an industry where there is much to gain, but also much to risk.
Francisco Urdinez, a politics professor at the Catholic University of Chile, cites the aborted Mexico City to Querétaro railway project as a cautionary tale: The deal was canceled for corruption, and public opinion singled out the Chinese firm in the scandal, even though it was part of a multi-company consortium.
"I think the reputational harm ends up being greater than the project's potential benefits," says Urdinez. "Chinese firms have more to lose than win out of uncertainties around the risks of domestic corruption here in Latin America."
Chinese businesses have learned from experience and are now focusing on smaller and less ambitious proposals than the megaprojects of the 2010s.
Diego Leiva, a Ph.D. student at Australia's Griffith University, says, "I think they're starting to learn quite a bit and starting to have more success."
Leiva points out that Chinese investments abroad are changing as they have grown at a slower rate, lost money and experienced problems in their own economy. He says that authorities are asking firms to be more considerate of risks before investing. For example, they "won't do the entire project anymore, but come in, let's say, through procurement — selling train cars, assorted inputs — but without necessarily participating in construction from the start."
Leiva says this has proved to be the right recipe, even in problematic markets.
In May 2021, the Chinese were successful bidders to build the first leg of the Mayan Train project from Palenque to Escárcega, in the eastern state of Campeche. Their proposal amounted to $781 million and was put together as part of a consortium. This consisted of the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), Mota-Engil in Mexico and three Mexican firms: Eyasa, Grupo COSH and Gavil Ingeniería.
In Brazil, they are processing the Ferrogrão project (also known as the EF-170 railway), designed to link the Mato Grosso state with the northern state of Pará. Another Brazilian project is the Pará railway, a joint enterprise between CCCC and Vale mining. In its first phase, the railway is set to link the city of Marabá with the port of Barcarena over 500 kilometers.
Construction is planned to start in 2021 with a budget of $1.3 billion. Once complete, the railway will be used to carry iron ore from the Carajás complex, the world's biggest iron ore mine. In a second phase, the railway will extend southward toward Santana de Araguaia, to incorporate meat and grain transportation.
A passenger naps on a train in Aguascalientes, Peru
In Argentina, one of the most recent agreements was in April 2019, when CRRC Qingdao Sifang, a rail construction firm, signed a $287 million deal (financed by the China Development Bank) with the Argentine transport ministry to supply 200 train cars for the General Roca metro line in Buenos Aires. In Colombia, a consortium led by China Harbour will build the first line of the Bogotá metro, covering over 20 kilometers. The consortium will also build the Regiotram de Occidente, a suburban line designed to transport 130,000 commuters daily between Bogotá and the Cundinamarca department.
In Chile, EFE Trenes de Chile, the former state railway, has bought 21 Chinese motor-coach trains for various services in central and south-central Chile. CRRC Sifang has also successfully bid to supply rolling stock for new long-distance trains set to link Santiago and Chillán (400 km) in just three hours and 40 minutes.
These are part of the Chile on Rails (Chile Sobre Rieles) plan that would increase train use from 50 million to 150 million passengers a year by 2027 and envisions big investments in a range of new services and infrastructure. Chile wants to grow its trains from 58 working units in 2019 to 156 in 2027.
There is "an important space for Chinese firms to participate in future tenders for rolling stock," says Franco Basso, an expert in transport systems at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. This, he says, could increase competition and lower prices, adding the Chinese could also supply electric coaches for city railways, contributing to moves to decrease pollution levels in cities.
Urdinez of the Catholic University of Chile, largely concurs: "It is a very cheap and non-polluting way of transporting goods and people, but its disadvantage is its very costly maintenance and installation."
He also highlights that the problem in Latin America is low population density, which makes railways less profitable than in densely populated zones like Europe. Although, he's also looking to the future: "As oil becomes scarce and costly and we have to cut carbon emissions, then moving toward an infrastructure system with a bigger share of railways will be crucial."
China's global investment tentacles have reached South American railways, where Chinese firms are "silent" partners in expanding rail networks, through financing or sale of rolling stock.
Workers in China load a metro train car that is to be shipped to Brazil
SANTIAGO — From public mistrust of its goals to suspicions of its ties to corruption rackets, Chinese investment in Latin America's railway sector has gotten off to a shaky start. Over the past decade, the Asian superpower may have suffered from its unfamiliarity with regional and domestic policies, but it's going full steam ahead on investment in an industry where there is much to gain, but also much to risk.
Francisco Urdinez, a politics professor at the Catholic University of Chile, cites the aborted Mexico City to Querétaro railway project as a cautionary tale: The deal was canceled for corruption, and public opinion singled out the Chinese firm in the scandal, even though it was part of a multi-company consortium.
"I think the reputational harm ends up being greater than the project's potential benefits," says Urdinez. "Chinese firms have more to lose than win out of uncertainties around the risks of domestic corruption here in Latin America."
Chinese businesses have learned from experience and are now focusing on smaller and less ambitious proposals than the megaprojects of the 2010s.
Diego Leiva, a Ph.D. student at Australia's Griffith University, says, "I think they're starting to learn quite a bit and starting to have more success."
Leiva points out that Chinese investments abroad are changing as they have grown at a slower rate, lost money and experienced problems in their own economy. He says that authorities are asking firms to be more considerate of risks before investing. For example, they "won't do the entire project anymore, but come in, let's say, through procurement — selling train cars, assorted inputs — but without necessarily participating in construction from the start."
Leiva says this has proved to be the right recipe, even in problematic markets.
In May 2021, the Chinese were successful bidders to build the first leg of the Mayan Train project from Palenque to Escárcega, in the eastern state of Campeche. Their proposal amounted to $781 million and was put together as part of a consortium. This consisted of the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), Mota-Engil in Mexico and three Mexican firms: Eyasa, Grupo COSH and Gavil Ingeniería.
In Brazil, they are processing the Ferrogrão project (also known as the EF-170 railway), designed to link the Mato Grosso state with the northern state of Pará. Another Brazilian project is the Pará railway, a joint enterprise between CCCC and Vale mining. In its first phase, the railway is set to link the city of Marabá with the port of Barcarena over 500 kilometers.
Construction is planned to start in 2021 with a budget of $1.3 billion. Once complete, the railway will be used to carry iron ore from the Carajás complex, the world's biggest iron ore mine. In a second phase, the railway will extend southward toward Santana de Araguaia, to incorporate meat and grain transportation.
A passenger naps on a train in Aguascalientes, Peru
In Argentina, one of the most recent agreements was in April 2019, when CRRC Qingdao Sifang, a rail construction firm, signed a $287 million deal (financed by the China Development Bank) with the Argentine transport ministry to supply 200 train cars for the General Roca metro line in Buenos Aires. In Colombia, a consortium led by China Harbour will build the first line of the Bogotá metro, covering over 20 kilometers. The consortium will also build the Regiotram de Occidente, a suburban line designed to transport 130,000 commuters daily between Bogotá and the Cundinamarca department.
In Chile, EFE Trenes de Chile, the former state railway, has bought 21 Chinese motor-coach trains for various services in central and south-central Chile. CRRC Sifang has also successfully bid to supply rolling stock for new long-distance trains set to link Santiago and Chillán (400 km) in just three hours and 40 minutes.
These are part of the Chile on Rails (Chile Sobre Rieles) plan that would increase train use from 50 million to 150 million passengers a year by 2027 and envisions big investments in a range of new services and infrastructure. Chile wants to grow its trains from 58 working units in 2019 to 156 in 2027.
There is "an important space for Chinese firms to participate in future tenders for rolling stock," says Franco Basso, an expert in transport systems at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso. This, he says, could increase competition and lower prices, adding the Chinese could also supply electric coaches for city railways, contributing to moves to decrease pollution levels in cities.
Urdinez of the Catholic University of Chile, largely concurs: "It is a very cheap and non-polluting way of transporting goods and people, but its disadvantage is its very costly maintenance and installation."
He also highlights that the problem in Latin America is low population density, which makes railways less profitable than in densely populated zones like Europe. Although, he's also looking to the future: "As oil becomes scarce and costly and we have to cut carbon emissions, then moving toward an infrastructure system with a bigger share of railways will be crucial."
As Brazil prepares to legalize homeschooling — a campaign promise that President Bolsonaro hopes to fulfill before October's elections — a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública finds that Brazil's religious homeschooling groups, supported by ultraconservative U.S. associations, are giving parents instructions on how to spank their children while dodging the law.
Children at play in Rio de Janeiro
Training dished out by Brazil’s homeschooling industry is encouraging parents to spank their children “calmly and patiently” as a teaching tool, a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública has found.
Books, websites and videos seen by our journalists give parents tips on how to spank children and dodge the law — by avoiding major injuries, visible marks and public humiliation. They also say parents who do not punish their children with “the rod” do not love God or their children.
Brazil’s Senate is expected to vote this year on a bill that would legalize homeschooling, passed already by the Chamber of Deputies, as promised by president Jair Bolsonaro on his 2018 campaign trail – to the dismay of UNICEF.
It’s something that conservative groups and high-ranking members of his government have long pushed for despite the tiny size of the sector, which is estimated to cover just 0.03% of school-age children.
Corporal punishment has been illegal in Brazilian education since 2014.
“It is at school that abuse and violence are revealed,” said federal legislator and educator Sâmia Bonfim, from the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL). “Without access to school, children who suffer violence are even more vulnerable.” Some 81% of reports of physical abuse against children occur at home, she added.
A total of 46.7 million students are enrolled in primary and secondary schools in Brazil, according to the official statistics office Inep, while 1.4 million of children are out of school.
Meanwhile, only 15,000 children are educated at home, claims the National Association for Home Education (ANED), the most vocal group promoting homeschooling and pushing for legalization by federal, state and municipal bodies.
“With so many pressing issues in education, only a powerful lobby explains the approval of a bill that would serve a group of just 15,000 people,” Bonfim said.
One online course, written by Bolsonaro’s former national secretary for human rights Alexandre Magno Moreira, tells parents: “Physical punishment always has to have a purpose… it is something that must be done calmly, patiently, and within specific situations.”
Punishment “cannot put the life or health of the child or adolescent at risk … it cannot provoke embarrassment, humiliation, or any other type of vexation for the child,” it adds.
Moreira, who served as Bolsonaro’s national assistant secretary for human rights in 2019 and 2020, and ANED’s legal director from 2010 to 2018, is still a legal adviser for the group.
The course, ‘Direito das famílias’ (Right of the families), is available on the streaming platform Brasil Paralelo, nicknamed the ‘Netflix of the Right’.
Moreira’s Telegram group, ‘The family and its rights’ (which has more than 10,800 subscribers), ran a survey on corporal punishment last year; 51% of 664 respondents ticked the option “yes, I use corporal punishment (e.g. slaps)”.
One respondent wrote: “The rod of discipline keeps the foolishness of the heart at bay. They [children] need to understand that sins have consequences, and that the rod purifies the heart.” Another said: “I only use the rod, never my hand, flip-flop or belt, the Bible doesn’t teach us to use these things, but it does [teach us to use] the rod!!!”
Founded in 2010 and based in Brasília, ANED lobbies Congress directly and also runs a network of local representatives in several Brazilian states.
ANED does not explicitly endorse violence against children in its own official communications, but it does distribute supporting materials that do so – via Clube ANED, its membership discount programme that works with 25 partner companies. At least four of these companies provide literature or learning materials that promote or normalize corporal punishment, our investigation found.
One of these companies is run by Flávia Saraiva, an ANED representative in the north-eastern state of Bahia. Família que Educa offers books and handouts on subjects such as maths, science and geography and links to YouTube videos and Telegram groups including Moreira’s channel.
One Clube ANED partner, HomeschoolariZando, gives free access to a cloud-storage system with teaching materials. Among them are Bible verses such as: “A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom, but a child left undisciplined disgraces its mother.”
Kairós Consultoria Educacional – another ANED partner company that sells homeschooling training to families – promotes the work of the controversial author Simone Quaresma.
Quaresma’s book, whose title translates as "Everything mothers wanted to know about biblical discipline", was banned in 2020 for advocating corporal punishment. It advised parents to use silicone rods to strike their children on non-visible parts of the body, and said that as soon as a baby could sit upright, “you need to start with gentle slaps on the butt or the little hands... Soon, however, it will be time to start using the actual rod.”
The book has also been sold via the company Simpósio Online de Educação Domiciliar (Simeduc), a platform for homeschooling products and services. The firm is owned by homeschooling advocate Gaba Costa, who helped introduce the ultra-conservative Christian U.S. homeschooling programme Classical Conversations to Brazil.
Another ANED partner company, Comunidade Educação no Lar, sells an online course with two whole modules on authority, obedience and correction, including extracts from Quaresma’s book.
Beyond the book, lectures and texts by Quaresma recommend lines to feed children who are questioned about physical violence at home: For instance, that corporal punishment is a private matter.
She also suggests disability should not be a reason to exempt children from physical punishment.
The 2020 court decision also ordered the removal of “biblical discipline” content published by Quaresma on her social networks and website. But a text published after the decision and others dated 2014 describing how to use the rod are still online on her website, Mulheres Piedosas. Quaresma appealed the ban with no success.
Quaresma told us she couldn’t comment on her book as she is “facing a lawsuit arising from a complaint by the Public Ministry [prosecution office]”. She said homeschooling was a good option for Christian families unable to get Christian schools that suit them. But, she said, “the discipline that the Bible teaches has nothing to do with homeschooling. They are two completely different things.”
A Classical Conversations tutor and mentor for homeschooling families, who asked to remain anonymous, told us that spanking children was good biblical practice.
“The Bible says ‘discipline your child, but do not kill them with discipline’,” she said. “The Bible contains verses that direct us to use the rod. But when we say this, outsiders think we’re talking about massacring [our children].”
Some parents “guide their children by taking things they like away from them, others use a rod,” she added.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks at a rally ahead of elections on Oct. 2. One of his campaign's promises is to legalize homeschooling.
Domestic violence against children is common in Brazil. A 12-state survey by the Brazilian Public Security Forum revealed that “mistreatment” was the second most reported offence (after rape) against under-18s in 2019 to 2021. The vast majority of the victims (90%) were under 15.
Mistreatment is abuse used as a means of correction or discipline, according to both the criminal code and the Code of the Child. The third most reported crime was bodily harm in a context of domestic violence. In total, the survey estimated that 137 crimes against minors are reported daily, with high rates of under-reporting.
Only three of the seven homeschooler parents we were able to interview for this investigation considered corporal punishment to be cruel or inappropriate.
A 38-year-old woman from the southern city of Florianópolis, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, began homeschooling her three children in 2018.
She did not beat them, she said – but she expressed understanding for “families that are going to use the rod of discipline, in the sense of smacking their children aggressively,” something she didn’t see as a problem.
“People from all walks of life, regardless of their religious beliefs, are going to act in the way that they see fit in order to educate their children,” she added. But an Evangelical homeschooling promoter who has opposed corporal punishment in a YouTube video, and spoke to us on condition of anonymity, argued that the Bible had been misinterpreted.
“If a religious leader says you can smack a child, then people will believe that biblical discipline is about hitting your children,” she said. But many Christians “listen to any outdated thing,” she added.
The reasoning of those who use or defend corporal punishment, on top of the religious justification, is that schools are also places where children can suffer abuse, even if it’s outlawed.
“Unfortunately, schools nowadays fall well short of expectations, especially since the pandemic,” argued a 34-year-old graduate in pedagogy and mother of four who spoke to us on condition of anonymity. She also cited “gender ideology” and violence in schools among reasons she had turned to homeschooling in 2019.
ANED has been challenging the law that makes school attendance mandatory for under-17s since 2010, lobbying for state-level legislation and defending homeschooling parents in courts. Several cities and two states, Santa Catarina and Paraná (2021), passed homeschooling laws, but state courts suspended them.
In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that parents would not be allowed to take their children out of school to teach them at home until federal legislation was passed.
But Bolsonaro’s election the same year was decisive in strengthening ANED’s position, according to the group’s website. Legalizing homeschooling was one of the president’s key promises for his first 100 days in office.
He didn’t deliver on that promise, but Bolsonaro returned to the issue this year to appeal to conservative constituencies as he seeks re-election. A bill to amend the general education law and introduce rules to govern homeschooling was speedily passed this May in Brazil’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, and is now being considered by the country’s Senate.
It was sponsored by two members of Bolsonaro’s cabinet – the evangelical pastor Damares Alves, and Abraham Weintraub, the former minister of education.
“Homeschooling is a dream and a right of every family,” Alves wrote on her Twitter account, posting a video calling on voters to ask their representatives to pass the bill.
The proposed rules for homeschooling state that at least one parent must be a graduate or undergraduate in higher or technical education, and that homeschooled children must take annual tests designed for them by regular schools.
But legislator Sâmia Bonfim, who voted against the bill, said: “We know that schools are not in a position to perform these tasks.”
There are no guarantees that homeschooling parents will be supervised or that their children will be tested, she explained. “It is unfeasible… There are no material and human resources to carry out inspections. There are no trained teachers to follow up students outside the school.”
Andrea Silveira Souza, researcher in education and religion at Juiz de Fora Federal University, explained: “Homeschooling has become one of the main issues and talking points… for conservative evangelical groups, opposed to secularism and the prohibition of religious indoctrination in public education, both guidelines laid out by the 1996 general education law.”
The homeschool teaching methods adopted in Brazil come from abroad. The two most cited are the U.S.-based Classical Conversations and that of the 19th-century British educator Charlotte Mason. Both connect the learning process to biblical principles, and their teaching methods date back to the Middle Ages.
One widely shared book is ‘Teaching the Trivium’ by U.S. authors Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn, which argues that parents should have exclusive jurisdiction over their children’s education, and schools are spaces that weaken family bonds and create “out of control cultural exchange”.
The Trivium – the “verbal arts” of grammar, logic and rhetoric – is a key component of classical education, as practized in Ancient Greece.
But the most relevant foreign influence comes from the ultra-conservative U.S. group HSLDA.
ANED boasts about its connections with HSLDA, which has been actively lobbying at the Brazilian Congress.
The U.S. group was founded in 1983 by lawyer Michael Farris, president of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – the legal advocacy and training organisation involved in campaigns against abortion rights and LGBTIQ people in the U.S. and abroad, which is considered a “hate group” by the U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center.
HSLDA successfully lobbied for the deregulation of homeschooling across the U.S., which allows parents to control their children’s education without state supervision. Stories of neglect, violence and death have been told by news reports and numerous former homeschool students.
“Corporal punishment is widespread in U.S. homeschooling communities,” Ryan Stollar, a U.S. former homeschool student, researcher and advocate for children and abuse survivors, told us.
HSLDA, he said, “believes very strongly in the idea that parents have these universal rights to be able to parent children how they see fit. And corporal punishment is probably one of the top free parental rights that HSLDA focuses on the most.”
Opposing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, HSLDA former lead attorney Chris Klicka said: “If children have rights, they could refuse to be home-schooled, plus it takes away parents' rights to physically discipline their children.”
And HSLDA’s founder Michael Farris wrote in detail about why and how to spank children in his book ‘How a Man Prepares His Daughter for Life’.
ANED, HSLDA, GHEX, ADF, Alexandre Magno Moreira, Flávia Saraiva, Editora Kairós and Comunidade Educação no Lar did not respond to our requests for comment.
As Brazil prepares to legalize homeschooling — a campaign promise that President Bolsonaro hopes to fulfill before October's elections — a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública finds that Brazil's religious homeschooling groups, supported by ultraconservative U.S. associations, are giving parents instructions on how to spank their children while dodging the law.
A phone call Thursday between Presidents Xi and Biden may have avoided adding tensions to U.S.-China relations, but now all attention will be back on the question of whether Nancy Pelosi lands in Taipei next month for a meeting that Beijing has been warning against and the Chinese media stirs the pot.
Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.
Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.
Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.
Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.
There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.
According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.
The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.
So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.
Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire
Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.
Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.
"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”
In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.
Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.
Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.
Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.
Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine
Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer
Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”
These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.
On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.
Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.