During his visit to Karachay-Cherkessia, Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Sergei Kravtsov showed the heads of the republics a history textbook for the 10th grade with a revised chapter on the deportation of peoples during the Great Patriotic War. Now the text says that 12 peoples of the USSR were indiscriminately accused of collaborating with the fascists and deported under escort to Siberia and Central Asia. “Along with individual renegades and traitors,” innocent people suffered, including those who fought heroically in the ranks of the Red Army, the material says.

Earlier it was reported that the authors of a new Russian history textbook (edited by Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Medinsky) would rewrite the chapter on the deportation of the Caucasian peoples “in an accelerated manner” after the dissatisfaction of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The Chairman of the Chechen Parliament, Daudov, stated that, on Kadyrov’s instructions, the entire circulation of the book was confiscated from republican schools (he later denied this report).

In the previously released edition of the textbook, the text about repressed peoples was included in the paragraph “Accomplices of the occupiers.” Allegedly, during the Great Patriotic War, many Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks and other peoples of the USSR collaborated with German troops and this became the basis for Stalin’s deportations. Later, the authors of the textbook reported that repressions against peoples are a “tragic page” in the history of these peoples, and accusations of complicity with the occupying forces are “sweeping.”