Zakharova pointed to the order to portray Russians as enemies in the culture of the West

In Western culture, there is a catastrophic shortage of images of "heroes" against the background of a political order to mold Russian enemies. As a result, those who have never been considered heroes before become suitable characters for such an order, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted on November 22.

This is how she commented on an article by the British newspaper The Telegraph about the famous Finnish sniper Simo Hyayuhya during the Soviet-Finnish war.

"I killed 500 Russians" is the title of the article. Carried away by rewriting history, the British recorded the "killer of Russians" in ... heroes of the Second World War. Although Simo Hyahia took part only in the Soviet-Finnish conflict of 1939-1940," the diplomat noted in her Telegram channel.

The reason for the article was the joint American-Finnish film "The Immortal: The Bloody Road Home," the second part of the "Finnish Commando Story." As Zakharova noted, its authors do not hide that they were inspired by the image of the "killer of Russians" Simo Hyah. Thus, neo-Nazism continues to march across Europe.

"The political order dictates making enemies out of Russians, who can be killed by the hundreds, bathing in blood. They found the one who really did it, and they turn him into a "hero" — a local rambo of Finnish bottling," Zakharova noted.

The diplomat recalled that Hyayuha had never been considered a hero. As the researchers found out, Finn wanted to fight against the Russians on the side of the Nazis, but he was not allowed in because of his injury, which made him disabled. He himself was never proud of his service, considering the murders he committed to be sinful.

At the same time, as Zakharova pointed out, Soviet snipers were once the heroes of America and Hollywood. For example, country singer Woody Guthrie dedicated one of his hits to Soviet sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko. Subsequently, she was invited to a reception in Congress by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.

"[Despite the fact that] now Bandera murderers are invited to speak before parliaments, <...> in the end, they (Soviet heroes. — ed.) remained and will remain in history. It cannot be rewritten by either conjunctural articles or film adaptations," the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry summed up.

"People don't want to know that their grandfathers were bloody murderers"

Historian Efraim Zuroff — about the glorification of the Nazis in the Baltic States, the distortion of the Holocaust and the role of Western countries in harboring criminals

On November 15, the Russian Foreign Ministry, commenting on the adoption of a resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism in the Third Committee of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, noted that the West continues to encourage dangerous trends and refuses to join international efforts to counter the glorification of Nazism. The ministry added that the resolution captures concern about attempts to portray as heroes those who fought against the Anti-Hitler Coalition during World War II, collaborated with Nazi Germany and were involved in war crimes.

Prior to that, on September 12, Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of culture in countering Russophobia and neo-Nazism. According to him, pride in the generation of winners in the Great Patriotic War (WWII) has become an integral, significant part of culture.

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