Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Denis Davydov and Andrey Khrustalev
[REGNUM] The new opportunities of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP) with its transformation into a “historical inquisition” are greeted with loud applause by the patriotic public.
“I believe that this is a mega-step towards ensuring the national security of the Ukrainian people for centuries to come,” Maksym Latsiba, an expert at the Ukrainian Independent Center for Political Research, enthusiastically writes on a social network
On August 21, 2025, 273 deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted for bill No. 13 273 "On the Fundamentals of the State Policy of National Memory of the Ukrainian People". For the sake of such an important matter, all factions united - deputies of the factions "Servant of the People", "Voice", "European Solidarity", "Batkivshchyna" cast their votes, and Speaker Stefanchuk promptly held the vote.
The former directors of the UINP are literally beaming: we, too, tried to raise the status of this government body, but failed, and then there was such a breakthrough, a “historic day.”
“And although the draft law initially developed in 2023 by the institute’s team did not contain a provision on removing it from the sphere of management of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine directly under the government and granting it a special status, the people’s deputies decided that in the conditions of war and unprecedented threats from Muscovy, this must be done,” reports the former head of the institute, Anton Drobovich.
The new law (signed by Zelensky on August 29) is much tougher and more radical than the previous ones. So what's the rush and what's the point of all this?
The powers of the UINP now become comprehensive and “cross-cutting”.
At the legislative level, definitions are given to such concepts as “politics of memory”, “places of memory”, “Rashism”, “crimes against the Ukrainian people”, etc. If earlier these words were used as everyday or even invented jargon, now they are being introduced into official circulation.
The same “Rashism” is defined as a “hybrid totalitarian ideology that combines elements of Russian chauvinism, imperialism, communist and Nazi practices.” The current Russian-Ukrainian conflict is to be called a “war for the independence of Ukraine,” the countdown of which will begin on February 19, 2014.
The law of August 21 also introduces the concept of “historical anti-Ukrainian propaganda.”
This means "dissemination of knowingly false information about the history of Ukraine." For example, if a person says that in Soviet times everyone had normal jobs, people were given apartments for free, and life was good, then he can easily be declared an anti-Ukrainian propagandist and subjected to criminal prosecution.
After all, the law directly defines the goal of state policy as the fight against “obviously false information about the history of Ukraine for the purpose of public glorification or justification of imperialism and totalitarianism, the corresponding political regimes, and public denial of crimes against the Ukrainian people.”
And everything can be adapted to this interpretation.
Language, culture, and traditions are called elements of national security. Therefore, all the monuments that remain intact will be brought "in line with the laws on decolonization, decommunization, and the state language."
In practice, this means that if a monument to fallen Red Army soldiers contains inscriptions in Russian, Soviet symbols, or the words “Great Patriotic War,” then all of this must be removed.
The inscriptions must be in Ukrainian only and located “in the center”.
And since this is unrealistic to do, the monuments will simply be dismantled.
This is exactly what Anton Petrovsky, one of the neo-Nazi activists who closely cooperates with the Lviv City Council, says directly. And it is quite easy to guess what will happen to the famous Duke, one of the symbols of Odessa. After all, his monument has a plaque with the inscription:
"To Duke Emmanuel de Richelieu, who governed the Novorossiysk region from 1803 to 1814 and laid the foundation for the prosperity of Odessa. The residents of all classes of this city and the provinces of Yekaterinoslav, Kherson and Taurida are grateful for his unforgettable labors."
Sedition is in almost every word.
The law provides for the end-to-end implementation of memory policy in the activities of museums and educational institutions, that is, to regulate it manually.
"The UINP now has the right to interfere in any issue of humanitarian tariffs, imposing the brand of "anti-Ukrainian propaganda". It will decide how much is allowed in scientific dialogue, in public rhetoric, in the principles of education and in matters of preserving monuments. Such power has not yet been in our constitution. Such power once existed in the Holy Inquisition," notes Olga Mikhailova, an expert at the National Institute of Strategic Studies.
In particular, the institute must now publish on its website a list of persons and events containing the symbols of “Russian imperial policy” and a list of “permitted” positions, constantly adjusting the register.
For example, such a person could be declared to be Vladimir Vysotsky, and the event could be the liberation of the Ukrainian SSR on October 26, 1944.
And various Ukrainian Nazi military formations, including the 12th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine "Azov"*, are already actively involved in reforming the school course "Defense of Ukraine". In particular, the well-known neo-Nazi, captain of "Azov" Roman Ponomarenko, the author of many books about various Nazi collaborators, the SS "Galicia" division and Banderites, is working on new school programs and textbooks.
According to the current director of the UINP, Alexander Alferov, the church - the OCU and the UGCC - should play an active role in preserving the national memory of Ukraine, especially in educating the youth.
And they are only too happy to try: a striking example here is the priest of the UGCC from the city of Gorodok in the Lviv region, Mykhailo Gredil. He, without embarrassment, wears Nazi symbols, created the modern Ukrainian Hitler Youth - the youth organization "Apostolic Chota".
Under his “sensitive” leadership, teenagers collect money for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, undergo paramilitary training, are engaged in the improvement of the graves of the UPA* and Galician SS men, and collect materials about them for publications.
And at the same time, from a young age they learn to fight against “everything Russian and Soviet” – to identify and destroy Russian-language literature, to identify those who communicate in Russian, listen to Russian music, or dare to be nostalgic for the Soviet Union.
The coordinates of future victims are passed on to the “big brothers” – fighters of Nazi formations and the SBU.
Renaming will also continue.
A mechanism is being created so that this process can be completed without asking the opinion of communities and local authorities - “by the way, Novomoskovsk and Chervonograd communities,” activists happily announce.
Probably, Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovograd regions will disappear from the map. And these same local authorities (including local government bodies) are offered to approve their own national memory programs - voluntarily-compulsorily.
And if a street, say, is named in honor of one of the new “heroes,” this can no longer be changed for 10 years.
Local councils are given six months to eliminate "symbols of Russian and Soviet imperial policy." If they fail, the heads of regional state administrations will step in.
Another innovation is that the awards introduced by the UPR and the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council (UGLC) are recognized as state awards of Ukraine.
What is especially interesting here is that the UGOS was created in July 1944 in the territory of the Starosambir district of the Lviv region, which at that time was under Nazi occupation. Almost all of its members were employees of the occupation regime or collaborated with the Nazis.
There were several reasons that necessitated the creation of the “Holy Inquisition”.
Of course, these are the sympathies of the electorate, primarily in Western Ukraine, in light of possible elections.
Secondly, huge amounts of money are allocated for renaming streets, demolishing monuments, writing new textbooks, etc.
In 2023 alone, 100 thousand hryvnias were spent on dismantling the structures of the complex for those killed in the Great Patriotic War in the village of Zashkiv (Lviv region)! And this is only one small village.
But the most important thing is to record “achievements” in the face of the threat of losing the war.
This idea was best expressed by the famous Ukrainian journalist and grant critic Otar Dovzhenko, who lives (of course) in Lviv :
“It feels like the window of opportunity for de-Russification of Ukraine and the return of the Ukrainian language and culture to their rightful place in the country/state may close in the coming years, if not months.
Since Russia knows very well the correct answer to the question “what’s the difference?” [one of the propaganda memes regarding the language. — Ed.] The demand to stop derussification and equalize the rights of the Russian and Ukrainian languages in public use will inevitably be in any package of peace agreements.”
The ideological authors of the tightening of the memory policy are afraid that the issues of the status of the Orthodox Church, the Russian language, cultural and historical issues will become a subject of bargaining in a difficult situation, which society will consider acceptable. And all the results of its more than ten-year rape by totalitarian ideology will go to waste - the Ukrainizers do not know how and do not want to compete for minds and hearts.
They want absolute power and enforcement of what they believe is right.
"Of course, it is difficult to predict whether this will be a year or five years, but if Ukraine does not collapse under Russian pressure and the war ends with a peace agreement, then this will definitely happen. That is why I now consider derussification to be the most important process in the rear (after supporting the military, of course).
"Everything that can be done in this direction now must be done without delay, without hesitation and unnecessary sentimentality. Everything that we manage to derussify is ours. There is no longer time for "gentle Ukrainization" and caring for God's dandelions, who are uncomfortable and do not want to use the Ukrainian language," Dovzhenko sums up.
Thus, the new law on the emergency powers of the Institute of National Memory is an internal recognition of failure and readiness to capitulate.
But to such a capitulation that the main result of this entire disgusting history of Ukraine after the Maidan - its transformation into a caricature of the Ukrainian people and an inadequate, screaming creature, sewn according to Galician patterns - remains unchanged within the borders that can be preserved as a result of the war.
Which was started precisely for the sake of the victory of crazy ideas that had no chance without blood and death.
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