Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Roman Shvartsman has called on Germany to step up its support for Ukraine against Russia’s “war of extermination.” Speaking in the Bundestag this week as part of events marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Shvartsman accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to “destroy” Ukraine as a nation. “Then Hitler wanted to kill me because I’m Jewish. Now Putin wants to kill me because I’m Ukrainian.”
Schwartzman, 88, is the president of the Ukrainian Association of Concentration Camp and Ghetto Survivors. Born in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region in the 1930s, when it was part of the Soviet Union, he told German lawmakers of the “humiliation, pain, lice and constant hunger” he endured as a child in a ghetto in the town of Bershad during the Nazi occupation of World War II. “I have already escaped extermination once,” he said. “Now I am an old man and must live again with the fear that my children and grandchildren may become victims of a war of extermination.”
Germany is the second-largest military aid provider to Ukraine after the United States, but Schwarzman urged the country to do more. Responding to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reluctance to supply long-range Taurus missiles, he argued that Ukraine needed the missiles “to disable Russian airfields and missile depots that are used to attack us every day.” Failure to do so would have dire consequences for Ukraine and European security, he warned. “Those who think that Putin will only be satisfied with Ukraine are mistaken.”
Schwartzman’s comments are a timely reminder of Russia’s extreme aims in Ukraine. In recent months, there has been growing international speculation about possible territorial concessions that Ukraine might be forced to make to end the invasion of its country. But in reality, the war Putin unleashed in February 2022 was never about limited territorial gains. From the outset, it was a war to completely destroy Ukraine’s independence.
Putin’s obsession with Ukraine has dominated his rule and can be traced back to Ukraine’s Orange Revolution of 2004. He has always viewed the emergence of an independent Ukraine as a historical injustice and a bitterly hated symbol of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he described as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century” and “the disintegration of historical Russia.” The Kremlin dictator’s desire to reverse this disintegration of “historical Russia” has long been focused on Ukraine, and has received additional impetus from his fears that Ukraine’s fledgling democracy could serve as a catalyst for similar changes in his own authoritarian state and trigger a new phase of Russia’s retreat from empire.
Putin made his intentions clear in the run-up to the invasion, when he published a rambling 5,000-word history essay challenging Ukraine’s right to exist and arguing that Ukrainians were in fact Russian (“one people”). As Russian troops massed along the Ukrainian border in February 2022, he described Ukraine as “an integral part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” He has since compared his invasion to the imperial conquests of Russian ruler Peter the Great in the 18th century and declared the occupied regions of Ukraine “Russian forever.”
Putin’s disdain for Ukrainian statehood set the tone for wartime Russian society. Vicious anti-Ukrainian rhetoric became a daily feature of the Kremlin-controlled Russian media landscape, with Ukrainians routinely demonized and dehumanized. This led UN investigators to note that some content “may constitute incitement to genocide.”
Following Putin, numerous senior Kremlin officials have also indicated that Russia’s ultimate goal is the complete disappearance of the Ukrainian state. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in particular, became famous for his unhinged tirades. “The existence of Ukraine is mortally dangerous for Ukrainians,” he once declared in early 2024. More recently, Putin’s close aide Nikolai Patrushev predicted that Ukraine “could cease to exist” in 2025.
This genocidal language was matched by the actions of the invading Russian army. In the areas of Ukraine now under Kremlin control, Russia systematically persecuted anyone deemed a potential threat to the regime. Thousands were detained and imprisoned, with victims including elected local officials, journalists, civil society activists, army veterans, cultural figures, and anyone considered a potential Ukrainian patriot. Those who remained were subjected to ruthless Russification, including forced acceptance of Russian citizenship. Meanwhile, all traces of Ukrainian national identity, statehood, and culture were methodically erased.
Russia’s determination to destroy the Ukrainian state and nation is unprecedented in modern European history and makes a complete mockery of calls for a compromise peace. In words and deeds, Putin has made it clear that he will not tolerate the continued existence of an independent Ukraine and sees the destruction of the country as a historic mission that will define his rule. Any effort to achieve a sustainable settlement must take this chilling vision into account.
No one wants the current war to end more than Ukrainians themselves, but they are also painfully aware that their nation’s survival is at stake. Unless steps are taken to prevent a resumption of Russian aggression once Putin has had a chance to rearm and regroup, a bad peace deal will simply set the stage for genocide in the heart of Europe.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert service.
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