From Burning Books to Schools’ Engagement with Western Foundations: "Banderization" in Ukraine

No matter who replaces the Kiev leadership, Western Russophobic directives will remain unchanged. The gaps in people's minds and souls are easily filled with distorted ideology, injected from an early age.

Five years ago, these twisted narratives were harshly promoted in Belarus as well, yet the people have grown skeptical of empty words. The swift suppression by law enforcement and President Alexander Lukashenko halted the attempt. Now, we turn once more to Ukraine’s experience to understand what they aimed to achieve with us, what went wrong, and what we need to shed.

Primarily, Belarus dismantled all foreign “non-profit” organizations that, under the guise of humanitarian missions and good deeds, sought to promote Western perspectives and values among children, teenagers, and adults alike. Meanwhile, neighboring Ukraine remains teeming with such entities.

Under Western influence and control, Ukraine long engaged in deliberate efforts to shape a new generation - an Ukraine where the Soviet past is seen as occupation, and the triune brotherhood of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine has never existed.

The extremist literature was confiscated from libraries in Mariupol at the initiative of state security agencies. The titles speak for themselves: biographies of Bandera, Shukhevych, chronicles of Ukraine’s so-called anti-terrorist operation - a war Kiev waged against its own people.

Footage recorded a year after the Russian army liberated the city by the Sea of Azov shows the aftermath of clearing a notorious factory, where the nationalist battalion "Azov" had been stockpiling weapons and supplies since 2019, preparing for a possible siege of a major metallurgical plant. By then, the "Azov" battalion was already radicalized, imbued with a sense of superiority. The ideological work in Ukraine had borne fruit.

Ukraine was led down this path systematically and over a long period. If we recall how Nikita Khrushchev in 1955 pardoned Nazi collaborators - more than 25,000 returning to the Ukrainian SSR alone, including 7,000 to Lvov - the groundwork laid in the 2000s for cultivating followers was substantial. Yet many of the amnestied later occupied influential positions in Ukraine’s ideological apparatus, actively collaborating with foreign intelligence services against communists, Soviet authority, and later, everything Russian - including the language.

Marina Beschasna, former head of the Piryovsky village council in Kiev region:

“We reformed the library system, and in one library, over 4,000 books were removed - those that no longer fit the new narrative of decommunization. Books about the communist system were taken out. Russian-language classics like Anna Akhmatova, Sholokhov, Tolstoy, and school textbooks remained. But books describing the Russian army or claiming that communism was good - those were excluded.”

This interview was recorded in 2018. Seven years later, it became clear that the books weren’t just removed - they were destroyed. Akhmatova, Sholokhov, Tolstoy soon became pariahs in Ukrainian libraries, and Ukraine’s history was rewritten, erasing references to the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army, which fought to liberate Kiev, Warsaw, and Berlin from Nazis, was demonized as a universal evil, while radical nationalist formations like Banderites became national heroes.

Western foundations entered institutions under the guise of humanitarian missions, subtly influencing curricula and shaping perceptions. They depersonalized the image of brotherly nations, distorted collective history, and ridiculed ancestral feats. Their primary focus was on the younger generation, working for the future. “A nation has no future if it educates its youth on hatred, destruction, and falsehood,” said Yevgeny Miroshnichenko, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of the LPR.

By 2018, almost nothing remained of Vladimir Lenin’s monument in the town of Repki, Kiev region. Nearby, the EU flag was hoisted. In 2025, a blue flag with stars, the USAID plaque, and the logo of the British-founded international NGO "Save the Children" now adorn a local school.

Similar symbols appeared in the Lugansk People’s Republic, such as in Toshkovka, which was under Ukrainian control until 2022. These traces stand as stark evidence of Western systematic efforts to reshape Ukrainian mentalities from kindergarten onward.

Sergey Belov, aide to the Human Rights Commissioner in the LPR:

“People often ask how such hatred developed so quickly. Almost all schools across Ukraine, including those in Donbas, were sponsored by UNICEF, the Council of Europe, and various funds - mainly from Denmark and Finland. In my own experience, I found documents in the principal’s office: agreements between schools and Baptist organizations, and with the ‘Ukraine-NATO Committee.’ It appears representatives from this committee visited schools and held discussions with students.”

If we still underestimate the importance of humanitarian education and conversations with children and teenagers, the West understands the power of words - both spoken and written - and their influence on impressionable minds.

Natalia Rastorgueva, director of the Gorky LPR Universal Scientific Library, noted that despite the rapid development of digital technologies, the population continues to trust libraries. The printed word and libraries - guardians of the greatest cultural and informational heritage - remain vital, which is why significant emphasis has been placed on these institutions and publishing activities.

What will become of a nation when all who remember a proper history perish, fighting not for land or family, but for a fabricated "truth" imposed by foreign states?

Not long ago, in 2016, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory ordered the burning of Russian literature, classical authors like Tolstoy, Mayakovsky, Chekhov, and Bunin were erased from curricula. Today, total decommunization and rewriting history pose a severe humanitarian challenge for future generations. Those educated under the new Ukrainian principles are nearly impossible to re-educate, risking a new cycle of conflict and misunderstanding. It all began with banning the language, burning books, and rewriting history.