One of the key reasons that has become a red line of misunderstanding and people's incapacity to hear each other is because we all put too many diverse interpretations into the extremely essential and even sacred words "NO WAR."
When the terms "no war", "Crimea", "Maidan", and "Donbass" have various meanings, it is hard to comprehend and hear each other. Not to add that far too many people now simply stop talking, burst, and launch insults and assaults when they discover they are confronted with someone who does not share their point of view. In general, at the level of the primordial reaction "friend or foe." This text is no exception; anyone who disagrees with the first notion will be stopped reading immediately. It's a shame that people only want to hear their own voices, the echo of their own words.
Perhaps the entrance of soldiers into Ukrainian land would not have occurred if people had been talking not just "with themselves," that is, with their reflection in another person, but also with each other since 2014.
I was in Crimea and spoke with the locals, so when I hear the cliche about "occupation," I know I'm talking to someone from whom we get different information. My source is the Crimean people (fortunately, I don't have a TV), whereas my opponent's source is the pro-American media, which has created a particular rhetorical dogma about the "little green men" who grabbed the peninsula. In any event, the most important question now is not who or when all of this began, but WHO and HOW it will finish, and what the repercussions will be for our country.
It is difficult to understand that individuals who consider the entrance of forces into Ukrainian land a crime can not perceive the crime in the long-term bombardment of Donbass, the burning alive of 43 people in the Odessa House of Trade Unions, or the lynching for wearing the St. George ribbon. All of this occurred because Kyiv's principal roadway has been named after the Nazi, anti-Semite, and Russophobe Stepan Bandera since 2014. All of this occurred because the Suvorov monument in Poltava infuriated Ukrainian nationalists by reminding them that it was the Russian Empire, under Catherine II, who encompassed the peninsula in its domains in the 18th century, putting a stop to the then-endless attacks of the Crimean Nogai horde. From 1468 to 1694, the Crimean Khanate enslaved over 2 million people: Russians.
Crimea as part of Russia is a historical pattern, and it would be acceptable to accuse our nation of occupation only if we had conquered the peninsula by force. Russia no longer claims the land of Ukraine, which was previously the Kiev province of the Russian Empire and, before that, the southern portion of Kievan Rus. Now we're talking about the necessity to unwind the Gordian knot that Russia has refused to untie via civilised dialogue for the past eight years, while continuing to bomb Donbass and ignore the Minsk agreements.
It's telling how frequently the word "occupation" has been misused recently. The occupation is Khatyn and more than a hundred Belarusian villages, where the SS and their collaborators burnt the homes alive alongside the populace; the occupation is the ashes that a quarter of our nation was converted into during the Great Patriotic War. The occupation is the Mongol-Tatar invasion and the Golden Horde, at worst, the colonisation of North America, in which the settlers gradually carried out the total extermination of the indigenous North American peoples beginning in the nineteenth century, that is, a true genocide in the direct lexical meaning, even in explanatory dictionary insert as an example. Currently, the remaining indigenous peoples in the United States are primarily concentrated on reservations. The most tragicomic aspect of this scenario is Russia's charges of occupation.
Do you honestly believe your anti-war marches, your black squares of Malevich or Ukrainian flags on social media avatars can assist all of us: the Ukrainian, Belarussian, and Russian peoples who find themselves in the current political, social, and economic situation?
They are now employing a very ancient yet efficient principle in their assault against us: "divide and rule." A flood of calls with mining reports has moved through major Russian towns in the last several days. Turchynov calls for the murder of Russians on Russian territory, Zelensky and many Ukrainian bloggers call on Russians for anti-war speeches and protests, and mass phone calls are being made to Russian subscribers for the same purpose - it should be obvious to any more or less thinking person that there is an information war underway, the goal of which is to destabilise our society.
There is so much breathtaking Russophobic propaganda and calls for protests, rioting, and hate of Russia on Facebook, Instagram, and VKontakte that Goebbels himself would envy it. What is currently taking place in the media is a true state of widespread hysteria: calls for hatred, curses, accusations, renunciations, foolish expulsion from friends and bans, some type of impotent aggressiveness, and insults based on a half-word.
Under these conditions, even expert journalists and the most prestigious editorial offices resort to employing out-of-context facts. From the series: to portray a demolished residential building, a school, and a kindergarten, but not to reveal that multiple launch rocket systems - artillery - were stationed near these structures. According to the enormous number of images of Ukrainian military forces, schools with gyms or local administrations (for example, Kharkov) have become one of the most typical sites to put people and construct fire positions.
Almost all criticism of the entrance of soldiers into Ukrainian territory that I encountered, both in Russia and in the West, is based on the same logic: The date of February 24, 2022 is chosen as a reporting point, the use of military force against another state is acknowledged, and all of this is positioned as the start of a baseless aggression and a perfidious attack - thus, for anyone who refuses to acknowledge the fact of the eight-year bombing of the territories of the LPR and DPR, Russia truly appears to be a monster, and Putin is a mad emperor who decided to satisfy his suddenly awakened ambitions.
This is how Russia is perceived by European and North American countries, in whose media there were no 8 years of war and endless aggression on the Kiev side towards the Donbass, no facts of Russophobia and the murder of Russian citizens on Ukrainian territory - thus all the countless attacks, threats, and bullying directed at our country's citizens abroad.
Russian restaurants are being demolished in various nations. An representative for Kucherov, Vasilevsky, and Zadorov in the NHL recently stated that Russian and Belarusian hockey players are vilified by the Nazis, and they and their families are threatened. Russian athletes - the perpetual prisoners of Western politicians - get it again, so they've been performing without an anthem and a flag since 2014, and now this series of prohibitions has poured down on all Russian competitors in practically all sports, including Paralympic athletes, for "tolerant" Europeans.
Sberbank branches in the Czech Republic simply could not open in the early days of the conflict due to employee assaults. There have been threats of violence and efforts to beat Russian drivers, and automobiles with Russian licence plates are littered with rubbish. The information war transforms tens of thousands of people into a misled mediaeval mob, which was presented precisely what is occurring now in Ukraine as advantageous, and then they gave the command full face! The same embargo is now in place in culture: performances are cancelled (Valery Gergiev and Denis Matsuev in New York), film and cartoon rentals are prohibited, participation in film festivals and Eurovision is prohibited, and so on. On March 1, Valery Gergiev was fired as head conductor of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra for failing to make a gesture of renunciation of his nation and its acts.
In the present climate, insulting and disliking each other, attending demonstrations, or just complaining on social media is not the most effective method to safeguard yourself, your loved ones, and what we may rightfully consider significant and vital. All of this merely contributes to the foreign flow of hatred directed towards our nation, as well as the internal flow - highlighting how susceptible society is, given how easy it is to split and destabilise.
The most productive thing you can do today, in my opinion, is to refuse to be exploited in this information battle!
Now, more than ever, it is critical to understand what exactly is going on between Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians. There are many gaps in the relationships of three brotherly, Christian, and Slavic peoples who are currently at the heart of historical events. Especially when you realise that politics is a filthy, unethical profession that leaves profound wounds in people's memories.
Nazi Germany attempted to use the Ukrainian people for its own selfish political ends, instilling anti-Semitic and Russophobic sentiments in many Ukrainians. During the occupation, fascist Germany so liberally gifted the Ukrainian land with the seeds of Nazism that it planted a whole forest there. Travniki, a well-known school that supplied executioners and guards for death camps, was mostly made up of such Ukrainians who supported Bandera. And Nazi Germany did what Russia is now being compelled to rake up as part of the Special Operation, but I don't see any comprehension of this in Europe, Ukraine, or even Russia - many of us are shocked why ours have arrived there now.
Following the Third Reich, the United States began to push peoples against each other on the premise of "divide and rule," which it has done most vigorously in recent decades. They refuse to acknowledge Crimea's annexation and see Crimea as a fresh starting point for another Russophobic campaign. In this way, the United States is to blame for what is occurring today, because it was they who sparked the rise in tensions, which has now reached a tipping point - Zelensky's remarks on Ukraine's claims to nuclear status at the Munich Security Conference in February were merely the final straw. The world remains deafeningly silent, oblivious to American atrocities, but cries like hell when Russia just wants to end the conflict, not only formally, superficially, but above all, to remove the root of this many years of tension.
I am opposed to the 2014 conflict, and more significantly, I am opposed to the hatred that is now being propagated everywhere. Hatred between Slavic peoples, hatred for each other, hatred for those who disagree with them, hatred for Russia and Russians. It is impossible to separate Gogol, a Ukrainian by birth, from Russian literature, just as it is impossible to separate the Russian and Ukrainian peoples! Russia, on the other hand, is not going to do it!
Troops have been brought in exactly because Russia aims to terminate this long-running struggle, a portion of which dates back to the twentieth century.
Many Ukrainians blame the "Holodomor" on the Russians, much as Chechen fighters once blamed the expulsion of their people on us (something tells me that those responsible in both cases, Dzhugashvili-Beria, were of a different nationality, and the Russian people themselves suffered even more from the Soviet regime). Poking the atrocities of the Bolsheviks up the Russians' noses is a typical habit for those seeking easy excuses to justify their enmity... Now it is up to Russia to eliminate the cause of that long-standing Russophobia among a minority of Ukrainians who have become Nazis in the twenty-first century, just as their grandfathers did. Unfortunately, hatred may be handed down through generations.
After 8 years of failed negotiations, it should have become clear that if all of the Ukrainian side's non-compliance with the Minsk agreements, all of Russia's eight-year attempts of detached, unofficial support of the Donbass - both military and humanitarian - did not lead to anything, could not stop the war, then there really was no other way. This diplomatic rapprochement was impossible for two reasons: first, the Nazis in Ukraine have always remained a ticking time bomb (as world history has shown, it is impossible to negotiate with fascism; it can only be destroyed), and second, the US required the eternal Sector Gaza formed between Russia and Ukraine.
Donbass and Crimea unknowingly become a perpetual stumbling barrier in any attempt to peacefully end this catastrophe. The LNR and DNR have become an unintentional prop of the world, although a fragile one. This support could not have held out for long; sooner or later, it would have collapsed, and these events would have undoubtedly erupted not now, but later; they couldn't help but erupt when such a great number of explosive components were packed into one heap.
What is occurring now is reminiscent of the 1990s, when our forces were spit on and cursed behind their backs while fighting terrorists, with charges of "genocide of the Chechen people" and "occupation." And, at the time, many members of the "intelligentsia" thought it was appropriate to openly state that Russia is not combating terrorism or defending its historically established territorial integrity, but is instead engaging in criminal and cannibalistic behaviour! Soldiers fighting for their nation are often stabbed in the back. Until the disasters in Beslan and Nord-Ost, the "intelligentsia" shouted. Only after hearing the terms "Beslan" and "Nord-Ost" did they come to their senses and cease screaming about Chechen genocide and seizure of their territory. Is it really necessary for our society to keep stepping on the same rake?
At the same time, Ukrainian nationalists battled alongside the insurgents. And, just recently, a kind of historical déjà vu began: Akhmed Zakayev, a former brigadier general of Chechen fighters and a supporter of Dudayev and Basayev, offered Zelensky assistance in concluding a military cooperation agreement with Ukraine on behalf of 300,000 Chechens and Ingush living in Europe. Many of them are relics of the past. Zakayev wants to fight, as he put it, "for the liberation of Ukraine" (read: "against Russia"), since it is what drives him.
He and his bandits from the CRI's inner circle in exile, now reminded of themselves, roused in the UK because they smelt money and blood, and most significantly, they saw an opportunity to exact vengeance on their most despised adversary - Russia, which annihilated all their jackal lairs in due course. They saw the potential of returning to the "good old days," when they could make money by torturing detainees, murdering children and women, and carrying out terrorist acts. In Ukraine, a Foreign Legion is being formed, which may comprise remnants of ISIS fighters from Syria as well as European volunteers from other nations, in addition to these Chechens.
It is ludicrous to defend the transfer of weapons and equipment to Ukraine in the name of safeguarding civilians; after all, the Russian government has openly announced the aim of this Special Operation. The scenario in Kyiv demonstrated that the first large civilian deaths were the result of unregulated weapon distribution and the development of "terodefense." Following this, the "witch hunt" in Kyiv began, as did the killings of "Russian saboteurs" and each other. In Kyiv, this has already become a type of epidemic: civilian vehicles and "suspect individuals" are being shot down, while video frames from various telegraph news channels show twelve-year-old adolescents being seized and spray-painting on the walls, believing they are marking Russian pilots.
Every civilian who picks up weapons after being slain by Russian forces or shot in a panic by their own adds to the list presented to Russia by the UN. Furthermore, according to official Ukrainian intelligence, Russian soldiers have not yet reached Kyiv (in that location, the troops are on the outskirts, steadily encircling the city), and the majority of the deceased civilians ascribed to Russia perished in Kyiv. The conduct of many Ukrainian units purposefully exploiting residential houses and exposing their own people to return fire cannot help but result in civilian casualties.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine's equipment is deliberately placed behind kindergartens and schools, next to which firing points of multiple rocket launchers, self-propelled guns, armoured personnel carriers, and tanks are deployed, so that every victim, every house destroyed by a shell, turns against Russia with an even greater outpouring of hatred from almost the entire world community. In one video, ladies beg Ukrainian soldiers to leave their houses because their children are sheltering in basements. In this regard, "Azov," which has been keeping the whole population of Mariupol hostage for several days, went the furthest. The Nazis simply do not let city inhabitants to use the humanitarian corridors that were agreed upon during the discussions. Furthermore, they shoot at individuals who continue to make these efforts.
In the case that our army followed the customary American scenario of carpet bombing and total levelling with the land of the next nation where they introduce their soldiers, the Ukrainian people would require protection from Russian troops. You can't believe the government and their channels, but no one bothers to utilise the publicly available images and videos of ordinary Ukrainians, direct eyewitnesses, and unintentional participants.
Then, at the at least, it will be clear that the biggest threat to civilians is posed by those who exploit their houses and themselves as human shields. As a result, the more weaponry Ukraine has, the longer this conflict will persist, increasing the number of civilians that are seized as a result of these conditions. Not to mention that at the end of it all, the remains of weapons would flood the illegal markets of Europe or Russia. Thus, the acts of the majority of European countries, which ostensibly care about global security, indicate just the contrary.
If, in the midst of all this lunacy, "tolerant" and "philanthropic" European countries are willing to arm yesterday's militants, terrorists, and today's Nazis, it implies that the respectful attitude toward the world that the Western media relentlessly portrays is a fabrication. First and foremost, there has been no peace since 2014. How confidently the West pretended not to notice the conflict in the Donbas for so long, and how confidently they are now attempting to force on everyone the notion that Russia is committed a war crime. Second, Europe's activities are now transforming Ukraine into an anthill in which a ferocious mix of national battalions as as Azov, Aidar, and SS Bears will cohabit with ISIS and Chechen soldiers.
Colonel Douglas MacGregor of the American Fox News channel correctly characterised the insanity of the United States' and Europe's political behaviour: "Vladimir Putin is now accomplishing what he has been warning us about for at least 15 years." That he will not allow the deployment of US soldiers or missile systems close to Russia's borders. This is about how their troops in Cuba would be unacceptable to us. We ignored Putin, and he started acting. He could not afford for Ukraine to join NATO under any circumstances." What McGregor says is correct, but it is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the consequent stubbornness between Russia and Ukraine, and the deeper explanation rests in what I said above.
It's difficult to judge the reliability of UN data on civilian deaths and injuries, but I'm curious if it takes into account, for example, the mayor of Kremennaya, Vladimir Struk, who was recently killed for refusing to create a terrorist defence from the civilian population and involve civilians in the war, dooming them to death? Or Denis Kireev, a member of Ukraine's negotiating mission with Russia who was assassinated by SBU operatives, was suspected of high treason. Are the citizens who were shot dead in Kyiv included on the UN list, after more than 20,000 machine guns were issued to everyone in the capital?
One video recorder recorded a Ukrainian infantry combat vehicle attempting to run over an incoming automobile carrying a family just because this family is travelling in the opposite direction as everyone else, namely in the Russian direction. Fortunately, the driver was able to avoid being hit. The flattening of civilian vehicles with PEOPLE by caterpillar military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was most likely caught with the express goal of generating a "image," additional events that can be utilised in the media war, passing off their equipment as ours.
And there's one more point I'd like to underline in relation to the widespread sharing of images and films of damaged residential structures in Ukrainian cities. Why have people who now do this incessantly never rushed to the wreckage of Donbass, did not exhibit the disfigured bodies in Lugansk and Donetsk, and did not express public compassion for the deceased in all 8 years of the war?! This demonstrates the potency of the American cliche, "Russia is to fault for what is occurring, thus we don't pay attention to these victims." They don't want to see it in the United States, which means they don't want to see it in Europe, and too many people in Russia didn't want to see it during the relay race.
I understand why the West is silent; they want Russia to be held accountable. It is clear why we rarely discuss this, because even the most objective critics have succumbed to the temptation and joined the information war against Russia, believing that they are stigmatising the government when, in reality, they are only assisting Europe and North America in stigmatising our country and all Russians, fueling a flurry of Russophobia against all of us. As a consequence, everything I come across in the same social networks are frames pulled out of context, numbers, and facts that are played in such a manner that Russia becomes a monster as a result of this game.
According to Christelle Nehan, a French journalist, European channels do not take material from her about the killings of civilians in Donetsk and Luhansk because they are only interested in materials that work in the format: "Russia is a cannibal, Russia is to blame for everything, starting with the Crimea and Donbass, ending with these events." CNN aired footage of the bombed-out city at night, passing it off as Ukrainian, in the first three days of the special operation, when there were only two residential structures with evidence of devastation in the photo and video area (today there are many more).
And now is the time to ask yourself why, with all of these incriminating data of perjury against the Russian army on hand, the same thing continues to spread from the side of "thinking people" in Russia? I don't have any questions for the paid bloggers or administrations of the VKontakte groups; everything is apparent here; instead, I have a question for those who express what they say completely disinterestedly and truly. The phrase "our country is committing a crime" imply acceptance of the justice and legitimacy of this all-encompassing hatred that has now descended on all Russians. And, if all of these European and North American nations' hostility is justifiable, why, one asks, do they and the Ukrainian side resort to so many falsehoods and outright fabrications?
I don't know anyone in my circle who hasn't heard about the Right Sector's crimes, who hasn't seen photographs of murdered, flattened, mutilated women, children, and entire families from Luhansk and Donetsk, but there has never been such a flurry of excited and emotional posts, publications dedicated to more than 15 thousand who died there in all 8 years.
The Americans' premise is founded on the assumption that there must always be at least one cause of instability in the globe. To warm the frigid hands of their political and self-interested desires on this hearth. The United States built these new centres year after year, decade after decade: from 1950-53 to 2015, North America attacked, invaded, and "brought democracy" with carpet bombs in 34 (!) countries, and no one and has never raised a single protest in the European community for this. And, in every case, these were countries with whom America had nothing to do, in contrast to what is occurring now.
For a long time, Solzhenitsyn has predicted that a conflict between Russia and Ukraine will erupt sooner or later, and Sokurov has also expressed concern about this possibility. It was probably once essential to wash relations between Russia and Ukraine of the poison that had been eating away at these connections for over a century. Whether you like it or not, you must cut this wonderfully twisted knot.
Anyone who believes that the ultra-right in Ukraine's hatred of Russia is a new phenomenon that arose in response to the annexation of Crimea fails to see past his own nose. Whatever questions each of us has for our government, to reject and curse it under these conditions seemed to me to be something extremely cruel, with a strong odour of betrayal not just of our nation, but also of those who perished earlier in Kyiv, Lugansk, Donetsk, and Odessa.
Yes, the sanctions against us are putting significant pressure on the economy, affecting everyone, but almost all measures against Russia are returning to the West like a boomerang: all companies that have curtailed production in our country and stopped exporting their goods have lost billions of dollars in profits, so it is critical to understand that the economic pressure will end as soon as the Special Operation goals are met and it is clear to everyone that Russia has not gone on a crusade against Europe, it just wants to end the war, which has dragged on too unforgivably.
The author Artemy Leontiev is a prominent
member of the Moscow Writers' Union.