Putin does not see all Ukrainians as sub-human as Hitler did to the Jews, so there is no impetus to gassing them off completely.

However, he is surprised and worried at the Ukrainian people’s resilience and defiance so nothing is completely off the table.

At least for some Ukrainians.

Traditionally, Russia likes to exile troublemakers to Siberia or shoot them dead in the forests like the Nazis did.

Poisoning people is a scare tactic often practised historically by Russia but, interestingly, not by the Nazis — except to kill themselves because they were too scared to face trial and possible execution by hanging. It is not a person’s political identity that is a primary concern to us but what methods that individual or group is prepared to execute.

In the Second World War, there were plenty of good Nazis who were Nazi in name only. They only joined the party to help themselves get a good job or as a result of pressure from friends and society. They had no interest in politics.

Some of these dormant passive Nazis even saved Jewish lives.

The Russian Wagner elite soldiers are not unlike the kapos (guards) used in the Nazi concentration camps. Like the Wagner soldiers, the kapos had a history of violence. Warped personalities were used by both Hitler and Putin to terrorise, maim and destroy other human beings.

In all armies there are warped personalities who revel in violence and enjoy it. They are prepared to do what no ordinary soldier would dream of doing.

Remember the 19-year-old Russian soldiers crying on TV, remorseful and in distress? These kinds of soldiers are useless to tyrants like Hitler and Putin. Even Hitler and Putin as young men would not have been able to do what some Nazis, kapos and the Wagner soldiers did. They just let other people do the vile work that they do not have the stomach for.

Rape in war is primarily about power and control. Many soldiers rape because of peer pressure to do so and orders from their superiors.

Decent young soldiers do things in war they would never do in peacetime. This is just one of the things so shocking about war.

Jane-Dora Fraser,
Leeds.

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