Dear friends and supporters of FASPE,
Since Thursday, February 24th, we live in a different world. Ukraine has fallen victim to a cruel and ruthless war of aggression, instigated by Vladimir Putin. Thousands are dying, hundreds of thousands are fleeing, millions of Ukrainians, Russians and other Europeans are in danger of living under an increasingly dictatorial and brutal regime – a regime that seems even to be willing to risk a nuclear catastrophe. And we are left with the deeply unsettling question, whether this is only the beginning.
Trying to legitimize the invasion, Russian newspeak has employed a terminology of “denazification” and “preventing genocide” to distort, mislead, and distract from Putin’s own fascist tendencies and cult of violence. FASPE, an organization anchoring our educational work and its reflection on ethical leadership in the study of the decisions and actions that led to the genocidal crimes committed by Nazi Germany, is appalled by this reckless abuse of historical references. Putin “wants to deprive these crucial concepts – Nazis and genocide – of any meaning, to wear them out, to make them impossible to use in a reasonable way.

Ukrainian Army, 3rd Battalion, 14th Mechanized Brigade in Yavoriv, Ukraine
Sincerely,
Thorsten Wagner
Executive Director for Strategy and Academics
FASPE
