Focus Ukraine "Distorting mirror - 'Lessons from history' - an empty phrase?"

"Lessons from history" - an empty phrase?

With the war in Ukraine, the gaze also falls on the unprocessed and long overlooked violence in Russian history and present in the West. Mass destruction, which became a certainty with every liberated place like Butcha or Izjum, is the result. Why was Russia's neo-imperial posturing and nationalist rhetoric ignored in Europe for so long? How was it possible to fall "into a sleep of history" in this country, even though it is precisely in Germany that history plays a constituent role for the postwar period. Against this background, can lessons from history still be learned for the future? Conversation with Vasyl Cherepanyn and Andrii Portnov.