Communication with Ukrainian friends on the web has been tough all week – it is hard to bear with the military defeat in Donbas and inability of Ukrainian forces to protect the peaceful population of Mariupol, but different people react differently to it. That is why there is no point of being too soft in such situations: shock knocks the weak out of place, but it makes the strong even stronger. And Ukraine’s hope, as well as everyone’s who understands that it is being decided there what kind of world we are going to live in, lies only with force. Force, which is able to coerce the other world to resistance.
Ukraine’s main enemy is not even the victimization of Ukrainians, but their narcissistic victimization. Passion for it leaves no chance for serious analysis and discussion of the ongoing events. Clearly, not everyone suffers from it, but it is present in the information field, which significantly reduces the will to resistance. It is typical not only of Ukrainians, Russia’s progressive society is ready to lament and call the world for help in various situations, including the current one, for hours.
Yevhen Kyseliov’s words can be an example of how deeply victimization has corroded the brains of both Russians and Ukrainians: “It is hard to imagine the Turbin brothers under Shoigu’s command.” Wishing to offend Putin’s defense minister, Kyseliov selected those [literary characters] who lost to both bolsheviks and the Ukrainian army as an example of honor and dignity. Considering the anti-Ukrainian pathos of the White Guard, it is even somewhat tactless. And another important detail: it is Putin who commands the Russian army, not Shoigu.
As for help, it is nowhere to be expected from. The PACE offers to give back the Russian delegation the right to vote. The Greek elections set problems for Europeans that move Ukraine to the background. And the rest of the world has questions which are not to be discussed in Ukraine and in Russia, especially in Russia. As for Ukrainians, they do not escape from such questions, unlike the Russian progressive society.
A lot of people in various countries support Ukraine and they are convinced they are supporting the fight of the Ukrainian people. But they all need proof of this fight, they need to see it. Instead, they are being shown a strange war and continuation of economic cooperation with Russia. And if Ukraine remains alone, should the Kremlin alone take all the blame? Will it be exclusively the fault of the Kremlin’s diplomacy and propaganda?
The IMF statute does not have a direct prohibition on providing aid to countries at war. What there indeed is, is the high probability of ceasing such aid because of the possibility of its military use. This applies to any other aid, which automatically turns into support of one of the fighting parties.
A heavy feeling appears, and an evil assumption, that it is those who deal with distribution of aid are the most afraid it will stop. And that the considerable part of Ukraine’s political and business elites profits from the country’s victimization. This impression intensifies when you come across practically identical texts on the malignancy of those who preach active resistance in mass media and social networks. It is said they are the Kremlin’s agents who want to put the Ukrainian army under a blow. And it is considered by default that the Ukrainian army is doomed to lose.
And of course, in comments to such texts everyone except for Ukrainians is denied the right to discuss this topic. But it does not work that way. Ukraine now is truly defending Europe and hopes for its help. So, the behavior of Ukraine’s ruling elite is a topic for discussion in Europe, as well as in Russia.
The other side of victimization is hope for changes for better within Russia. This hope is combined with an absolute unwillingness to know and understand what exactly is happening in the aggressor state. The same people sometimes demonize Russia as an embodiment of doom and darkness and see it as weak and worthless.
The events of the past decade show that the external threat does not always bring nations together. Russians were brought together by an imaginary external threat, Georgians were torn apart by the real one. But the fact is that the elite and the population are consolidated in Russia, destruction of Ukraine as a national goal works great. The consolidation of Ukrainians and existence of a national Ukrainian goal is not yet to be seen. As for the West, its generally pro-Russian bend is explained by the inadequacy of elites, their readiness to conspire with the Kremlin, and voters’ position. The West is not inspired by the war for Ukraine, and Russian propaganda knows how to work with it.
There also is something very important. The annexation of Crimea and the shelling of Mariupol would have been approved by all Russian tsars and Soviet leaders, including Gorbachev: just remember Vilnius and Baku. The approval of Pushkin, Tiutchev, Dostoevsky, Ivan Aksakov is not to be doubted. However, the same cannot be said about Leo Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Nabokov.
But this is about beautiful history, the brilliant empire, can it be compared to the rotting Transnistria and Donbas underclass? Is it an empire now?
Yes, it is. And the former brilliance is legend, be it the autocracy or the Soviet Union. Empires can be different. The goal of the Russian empire is to not let modern statehood form on the post-Soviet space. That is why it gambled on separatist ulcers. This was started by Anatoly Lukyanov during the USSR. And in order to understand the nature of this empire, one must remember something else, the history of the Chechen wars.
Chechnya never wanted to separate from Russia and form a national state. The local elite had a different task: to keep the status vague and undefined, which would allow them to milk the federal budget and exploit other benefits in a criminal way.
Their relations with the government, especially law-enforcement structures, have been different. Sometimes they have been mutually beneficial. Let us remember the role of Chechen militants in Abkhazia. Basayev was brought up by the Russian military, just like the Taliban and Osama were created by Americans.
Showdown is what the Chechen wars really are about. And after all, what separatist Dudayev failed to achieve, the Kadyrov collaborators succeeded at. Special status, tremendous subsidies, all possible benefits.
This is the empire in its current form. Any empire is a conglomerate of heterogeneous formations with different rights. The British negotiated with rajas, the Russian tsars with emirs. The new European state is far more strict and intolerant. Unlike the archaic empires, the modernized state of the new age creates a unified legal space. Russia started a war in Chechnya under this slogan: the restoration of constitutional order. And it ended with a directly opposite result.
There should be no wonder that Kadyrov is entering the political foreground when it comes to enslaving other nations: enslaving them through forcing them to live according to imperial ideas, but not European laws. And that is why the war against Ukraine is and will be waged in the cruelest way. The goal is simple: to show on Ukraine’s example what is going to happen to the disobedient. The rest will fear. And they do fear, from London to Washington.
The shelling of Mariupol took place to intimidate the civilians, who needed to be shown that the Ukrainian army and government are not able to protect them. This shelling is identical to the bombings of Coventry, the shelling of Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, and Leningrad. And it takes place on the eve of another anniversary of the blockade removal: strange coincidences take place in history.
But there is a crisis in Russia! It was given the trash rating, everything will collapse soon.
It is not a crisis, but another perestroika. Stalin’s destruction of quite a stable and promising economy was connected to the aspiration towards the ultimate power and a number of external factors. A similar process is taking place now. Current events in Russia are more important in the social sense than in the economic one. A transformation of entire social groups and layers not into camp scum, but into social dust has started. The destruction of education has no economic stipulations, it is merely the abolition of enlightenment. I will say more, what is not yet being discussed in Russia: the healthcare reform, changes in the social sphere, those that apply to pensions in the first place, and a number of other things are aimed at the reduction of population at the cost of socially unpromising groups. A detailed draft law on euthanasia by decision of the executive authorities was created back in 2007. But it has been put off for now. There are references to it, it is a known fact.
A new totalitarian empire is rising in the east of Europe, which possesses the weapons of mass destruction. Now we can talk of Putin’s doctrine not only in the post-Soviet space, but also in global politics. The essence of this doctrine is the conversion (or capitalization) of nuclear weapons. Blatant racket, nuclear blackmail by Russia, which will support the power and wealth of its ruling elite by extortion, awaits the world.
Ukraine is just the beginning. But it is up to it to decide whether to become a victim or a center of resistance, which is not hopeless at all.
Dmitry Shusharin is a Moscow-based historian and political journalist
