Mock Execution Of World War II 'Traitor' In Siberia Misfires For Many

RFE/RL ^ | Aug 2019 | Matt Luxmoore

[CondoleezzaProtege]

"Subject to execution by firing squad!"

The words rang out this weekend in a Siberian field near the border with Kazakhstan.

"The decision is final and cannot be appealed."

Three men with Kalashnikovs and military uniforms seized a third man wearing peasant clothing and shouting "I repent!" and "They forced me to do it!"

Two shots were fired. The man fell to the ground.

"Death to traitors!" a voice shouted through a microphone, as the crowd began to applaud.

The guns were fake, the man acting, and the WWII uniforms part of a family oriented history festival at which this mock execution was merely one element. But video of it quickly went viral, sparking mockery on Twitter and anger from critics who saw it as further proof of the militarization of Russian society.

"Savage entertainment in the presence of children. A sick country. A sick nation," wrote a person with the Twitter name ZelloXoxma.

"They're preparing the population for such scenes. Clearly new lunacy is on the horizon, a repeat of 1937," wrote Twitter user Kristian Hofer, referring to the peak year of Stalin’s Great Terror.

Others defended the performance.

"What's savage here? This is history. It's what happened in our country," wrote Twitter user Yourcommissar. "People should know so that this doesn't happen again."

The mock execution took place on August 24 outside the village of Shipunovo in the Altai region, as part of Dnieper Line, an annual festival of historical reenactments. Now in its second year, the festival features an open-air exhibition of military hardware, musical performances, and the destruction by fire of a makeshift Ukrainian village as part of a reconstruction of the August 1943 Battle of the Dnieper, one of the largest operations of World War II.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

During the war, the Red Army executed an estimated 217,000 Soviet citizens, many of them soldiers.

[dfwgator]

And then there was Operation Keelhaul after the war.

[MuttTheHoople]

Let’s party like it’s 1939.

[kaehurowing]

Here’s the real one (warning—graphic):

Soviets massacring Polish officers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geu0R4xGAi4

This is what the leftist Democrats want to bring to America.

[PAR35]

with Kalashnikovs

Not historically accurate, it appears.

While Kalashnikov did develop a rifle in 1944, it was rejected in favor of a competing design. His famous design dates from 1946. I doubt that anything he designed would have been used in a 1943 battle.

[Lurker]

“Three men with Kalashnikovs and military uniforms“

Idiot reporter. Those are Mosin Nagant rifles. The Kalishnikov wasn’t introduced until 1947.

L

[This_Dude]

I saw “WWII” in the headline, followed shortly by Kalashnikov and knew immediately there was a problem.

[NorseViking]

RFE is something. Is there anything they won’t politicize?

[sport]

You have been on this forum long enough to know that to a reporter every gun is an AK47. From a water pistol to an artillery piece, it is an AK47.

[Lurker]

And I never tire of pointing up the fact that 95% of journalists are sub-80 IQ morons who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

L

[sport]

I think that your 94% estimate is low about 4 9/10%. But other that that we are in agreement. The reason I did not go with 100% is that sometime there is an exception.