Russia, Ukraine: February 23 · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

Scraps of Moscow, Ukrainiana, and Windows to Russia! write about the Defender of the Fatherland Day (formerly known as the Soviet Army Day). Feb. 23 also happens to be president Victor Yushchenko's birthday, and, as Window on Eurasia points out, it is also the day on which Stalin’s deportation of the Chechens and Ingush began in 1944 – “an act of genocide in which more than half of those sent east lost their lives and one that lies behind many of the recent tragedies in that part of the world.”