Mr. Van der Bellen goes to Kyiv and Rewrites WW2 History (for which David Irving was sentenced in Austria some time ago)

Renewing his silly statements, he vows to 'stand with Ukraine', meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy later today, and took Environment Minister Gewessler with him

Just as I thought this wouldn’t get any weirder, Austro-Covidian president Alexander Van der Bellen re-affirmed his ‘believes’ by travelling to Ukraine (after yesterday’s meeting with his Slovakian counterpart in Bratislava). ‘Enjoy’ what legacy media tells us about his unannounced ‘surprise’ trip to Kyiv—that is, if you can stomach all these pollyinnaties (if that’s a word) that, seemingly, pass for ‘conventional wisdom’ in the West. I’m tempted to render judgement on Western Civilisation akin to the ancients:

Thus passes the glory of the world. [Sigh.]

Please find the original piece here, which appeared on Austro-Covidian state broadcaster ORF’s website earlier today. As usual, translation, commentary in squared parentheses, and emphases are mine, as are the ‘Bottom Lines’ below.

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Van der Bellen Goes to Kyiv

Two days before the now confirmed EU-Ukraine summit in Kyiv, Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Wednesday morning for a surprise solidarity visit. He travelled together with Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) and ÖVP Economy Minister Martin Kocher. A meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is planned for the afternoon.

With his trip to Ukraine, which is under attack by Russia, Van der Bellen wants above all to signal support: ‘We stand by Ukraine, we won’t abandon it.’ The Federal President justified the joint trip with the minister shortly after Van der Bellen's second inauguration by saying that Austria was ‘militarily neutral’, ‘but not politically’ [well, that means apparently (still? again?) pro-Neonazi *puke*].

Following a long humanitarian tradition, Austria supports the country under attack on several levels.

In addition to the meeting with Zelenskyy, Van der Bellen will visit aid projects with Austrian participation. For example, a visit to a school in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha and a maternity clinic in the capital are planned [nothing signals moral superiority as much as a field trip to the locus of yet another ‘genocide’, followed by a photo-op including babies *puke*]. The delegation with Van der Bellen flew from Vienna to Rzeszow in Poland and travelled from there by overnight train to Kyiv. For security reasons, the trip was not announced in advance [lol, I mean, why would the Russians care about the Austrian president? I mean, c’mon, man].

Van der Bellen: ‘Comparable to Colonial Wars’

Ukraine is facing a war of aggression that is unparalleled [really?], said the Federal President on his arrival. This war is comparable to colonial wars from the 19th century [huhum, we managed to stay on message for, well, less than 4 seconds, I’m impressed; also, my 5yo is more coherent than this imbecile]. The population has been given a choice:

Either you accept to be a province of Russia, ruled from Moscow, or everything is ruined.

[There’s no way to sugarcoat this: this is a big, stinking lie; the choice was not ‘do as I say, or die’, but Russia has—in my opinion legitimate—security concerns deriving from the prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership; we now know that the Minsk I and II arrangements were never intended to be kept on part of the West, hence to say this either betrays reality or is indicative of, well, lying about this.]

Since there is resistance, the port city of Odessa, for example, now looks like a German city at the end of the Second World War [oh, now we’re to accept this as well—remember who started the WW2? Yes, I know, it’s more complicated than that, but hear me out on this one: invoking the destruction at the end of WW2 is one thing, but how on God’s green earth would a politician of Austria (!) get away with this moronic statement? Stating so indicates, logically, that ‘the Germans’ (incl. Austrians) would be responsible for the devastation of their homelands while Van der Bellen, at the same time, conjures up the notion that there would not be a cause-effect relationship to observe; if you’d follow this twisted logic, the Germans would be innocent of starting WW2, suffering destruction for no particular reason at-all, and the devastation suffered at the hands of, well, Germany’s enemies, would be somehow indicative of…Germans deserving, or not, this fate? Talk about judge, jury, and executioner in one person…] However, the resistance will only continue as long as the West provides help, said the Federal President. Since Austria could not supply war equipment due to its military neutrality, it is providing humanitarian and medical aid.

Only on Tuesday, the Federal President visited his Slovakian counterpart Zuzana Caputova in Bratislava and spoke with her about further aid for Ukraine. ‘We are obliged [by whom, one wonders? /sarcasm] to help’, Van der Bellen said. Since the beginning of the war, 118 million euros in state aid had been made available from Austria, he said. He also praised the commitment of civil society. Through the ‘Neighbour in Need’ [Nachbar in Not, a humanitarian relief organisation that originated in the early 1990s in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia] campaign, 56 million euros had been donated to Ukraine. [according to math, this indicates that slightly less than half of the total sum of 188m euros (some 47-8%) arrived in Ukraine; what happened to the rest of that money, by the way?]

EU-Ukraine summit on Friday in Kyiv

An EU-Ukraine summit will take place in Kyiv on Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council President Charles Michel will meet with Zelenskyy. ‘The fact that this summit will take place in Kyiv is a strong signal to both partners and enemies’, Shmyhal said. [I’m just glad that, ‘for security reasons’, Van der Bellen’s trip was not announced in advance; apparently, both Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel are more ‘expendable’ than the Austrian president]

It shows Russia that its efforts to sow discord [not necessary, we’ll manage that just fine w/o Russian help] among Kyiv’s Western allies and prevent Ukraine from joining the EU have been in vain. And it demonstrates the ‘high level of cooperation and progress’ between the two sides. The first consultations between the EU Commission and the Ukrainian government are to take place as early as Thursday. [wow, EU officials arrive the day before a summit; how spectacularly well-planned]

Ukraine Wants to Push Ahead with EU Accession

The EU-Ukraine summit was ‘extremely important’ [read: desperate] for Kyiv’s bid for Ukrainian accession to the EU. The country has officially been an accession candidate since 2022, Shmyhal said. Zelenskyy was even more explicit:

We expect decisions from our partners in the European Union that…correspond to our progress. Progress that is obviously there—and even despite the large-scale war.

Reforms are being worked on in Kiev, he added.

In the course of negotiations on EU accession, Zelenskyy has for some time been stepping up the fight against corruption in government circles [bruahahaha, good one]. He has not yet finished reshuffling leadership positions, and anyone who does not comply with the strict standards must expect to be dismissed, Zelenskyy said.

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Bottom Lines

More revisionism, as expected. You know, it’s an old saying that those who fail to learn the lessons of the past, are doomed to repeat history. I’d simply point to the fact that this isn’t failure to do so by accident. This is by design.

Western Civilisation, such as it still exists, has taken leave of its senses. It is no wonder that this leads to ever-more egregious lies, built upon fabrications, and cheap agit-prop stunts. At some point, the entire house of falsehoods will come tumbling down, but, alas, we’re not quite ‘there’ (yet).

Personally, I find the WW2 revisionism quite interesting, esp. since I’m a professional historian. If you would like to believe this version of history, we may entertain the following very weird and contradictory notions:

Leaving aside the complicated and complex road that led to Germany invading Poland in 1939, we are told repeatedly that Putin is a new Hitler, or ‘Putler’.

Van der Bellen’s invocation of the utter devastation of Germany at the hands of its enemies—which occurred, among other things, as a consequence of the invasion of Poland—to score cheap sympathy points is both historically inaccurate and disingenuous in the extreme.

We’ll also set aside that, in wartime, there are rules of engagement and laws of war, but it was almost exclusively US and British ‘strategic bombing’ that made most German (and let’s not forget the destruction of Japanese cities here, too) cities look like this:

‘Over 90% of the city centre was destroyed’, as (even) Wikipedia holds.

Yet, somehow, we’re supposed to accept these contradictory statements as ‘true’? I’m not easily offended, but this is an insult to everyone’s intelligence, not least Van der Bellen’s.

By that ‘logic’, the current conflict would be a bit like this:

Russia started the war by invading Ukraine. The ensuing destruction occurs mainly on the Ukrainian side of the frontlines. We’re supposed to #standwithukraine, whose most celebrated fighters are Neonazis. Russian claims to having attacked its neighbour in part to get rid of the Neonazis (‘de-nazify’, in Putin’s words) are dismissed as propaganda. In doing so, the Kremlin, however, is accused of conducting ‘strategic bombing’ campaigns like those carried out by the USSR’s American and British allies in WW2. Finally, Western peoples are told to #standwithukraine because of the destruction visited upon Germany (and Japan) by its enemies, which occurred seemingly co-incidentally.

You couldn’t make this up. And it you could make sense of it, please let me know. I feel the need to puke now.

And then I’ll see if we can get this ‘president’ to face charges for lying about WW2, which, as you know, is illegal in Austria. Or: used to be.