I’m trying not to express my political views publicly because who cares about them, but this is an occasion when I have to write something because I cannot abstain from that.
I was born in Kharkiv in Ukraine, I spent two thirds of my life there and I had a chance to travel throughout it, from visiting my grandparents in Lysychans’k in the East to seeing Lviv and Uzhhorod in the West, from Chernihiv in the North to Odessa and Crimea in the South (back when it was just some Russian military bases there and not the full-scale occupation of course). For you it may be just random places on the map, for me it’s very real places, in some cases places where my relatives live. So call me biased.
Anyway, the only way I can characterise the current situation is 1939 repeating again though this time you have one country to represent both National-Socialistic Germany and International-Socialistic Soviet Union (yes, IMO the main difference between them is what people they regarded as lower races—all but their own or simply all).
The reason for the current war is the same as in 1939: a power-mad dictator convinced himself that he and his country were denied the Lebensraum they believe should belong to them and that it’s the foreign threat that made them start the war.
And since Russian Reichspropaganda (in July 2014 putin said that Goebbels was a talented man—at the meeting with Jewish diaspora representatives—so I guess they see him as their teacher indeed) claims that Ukraine is not a real country and never has existed let’s start with a very condensed history of Ukraine.
History of Ukraine
The origin of Ukraine lies in the times when Scandinavians discovered they can organise a trade route to the East Roman Empire (the famous route from the Varangians to the Greeks) and built some outposts to control it with Kyiv becoming the main one. Time passed, the rulers (called knyaz which roughly corresponds to prince, duke or (war)lord) started to develop territory and thus Kievan Rus’ was created. It became a European country by accepting Christianity as the state religion (it was before East-West Schism so Volodymyr I is the saint both in Orthodox and Catholic branches of Christianity) and strengthening ties with the East Roman Empire while having ties with the Western Europe as well (Yaroslav the Wise had a daughter of Swedish king for wife, he helped one of his sons-in-law to become a Norwegian king, his other daughters were married to the kings as well and one of them even was a French regent for a while).
It’s worth noting that there was another trade centre in the North—Novgorod—which was a member of Hanseatic League and a democracy akin to Venetian one. Yet it played the second role to Kyiv and was eventually squashed by Moscow czar Ivan IV.
The main problem of Kievan Rus’ was the power struggle and very complicated inheritance rules so it was essentially lots of duchies competing for a throne in Kyiv. On the outskirts of Kievan Rus’ there was so-called Украина Залесская which translates to Beyond-forests Mark or Transylvanian Ukraine. Yes, word “ukraine” initially meant a borderland territory (but Ukrainians made it sound proud nevertheless). And yes, it’s bloodsuckers from wrong Transylvania who got all the fame. Anyway, on this territory there was a duchy of Suzdal and its ruler, Yuriy Dolgorukiy, founded a settlement called Moscow. And yet he wanted to be a ruler of Kyiv instead (and he was kicked out from there the first time out).
This internal struggle proved fatal when Mongolian hordes came. Disunited rulers could not unite even against the common threat and the land fell prey to the invaders. IMO that’s where the real story of Russia starts. While Ukraine struggled against the invaders, rulers from the Northern parts were happy to integrate with the khans, marry their daughters and competed for a permit to rule the whole region (which included collecting taxes and contribution to the Great Khan). Eventually a huge chunk was united under one rules who drove Mongols away by being a loyalist and supporting a different pretender to the post of the Great Khan (who later thanked them by coming and burning Moscow down). Ukraine meanwhile went a different route.
A lot of Ukrainian lands (and Belarusian lands as well) were taken by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (even to this day Belarusians are calling themselves litvin because of that). In that time so-called Ruthenian language (a Slavic language that local population would understand) was used as one of the official languages. The problems started to arise after the union between Lithuania and Poland that created Rzeczpospolita—Lithuanians did not care about certain things like religion while Poland started to force Catholicism (which led to the creation of a rather unique Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church). And it was the time when cossacks started to play an important role. They were an independent group with democratic traditions (hetman, the highest military commander, was elected at the officers council, to give one example) but they also enjoyed being employed by Polish government. The tensions between them and the Polish government (let alone the oppression of Ukrainian people by Polish noble landowners) resulted in an uprising led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky that resulted in unfortunate casualties. Side note: in Russian history until XX century there were no uprisings by Russians against the government except when led by the pretenders claiming to be czars. In either case, Khmelnytsky had to seek an ally to help him against Poland and he chose Muscovia (it was renamed to Russia much later) for being culturally similar.
But this protectorate has not lasted well since czars demanded each new hetman to make a new treaty with fewer and fewer freedoms left until in late XVIII century all pretence was dropped and that part of Ukraine was annexed, cossacks expelled and serfdom introduced (if you don’t know what serfdom is, it’s not that different from slavery). Another part of Ukraine went along with Poland to Austro-Hungary.
Let’s skip to XX century. After the February revolution of 1917 Ukrainian people formed a congress and made declaration of independence—before the October revolution of 1917 (and it had started before Lenin decided to return to Russia). The same way like some Soviet republics declared independence before the formal dissolution of USSR (mostly Baltic states and Ukraine). And since bolsheviks refused to recognize election results in Ukraine (where they got a minority of votes), they created a Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic and used the army (pretending to be a Ukrainian one) to conquer as much of Ukrainian territory as they could (Western Ukraine was left under Polish rule at that time). Then in 1939 World War II started and Ukraine was one of the bloodiest battlefields that was first fully occupied by the USSR, then by Germany and then by USSR again. During that was USSR fought mostly with troops from Ukraine and Belarus (with enormous losses because the commandment did not care) which was later used as a pretext to introduce both republics as founding members of the United Nations and allow Russians to claim that it was them who won the war (and who cares that USSR would not be able to fight without British supplies and American lend-lease program).
And here’s another small detail: after the war Crimea was devastated, its inhabitants deported to Middle Asia, so it was decided to “make a gift” to Ukraine which should provide it with the fresh water from the Dnieper and restore its agriculture, all while various distinguished Russians would get a piece of land at a scenic Southern Crimean Coast.
In the beginning of the XXI century Ukraine was slowly failing state (especially considering the corruption around natural gas but Europe turned out to be not that different in that aspect) that started to unite and get the national identity after several incidents all related to Russia: 2003 attempt to seize Tuzla island by building a dam to it (IIRC China has managed to get several islands from Russia in that way; this attempt has failed though), occupation of Tuzla island along with the rest of Crimea in 2014 and the war of 2022.
Now with that background let’s move to the common myths instigated by Russians.
Russian myths about Ukraine
Here’s a short list of what I can remember. Probably there are more but I’d feel queasy if I have to search for more.
- Ukraine is not a real country. I hope from that condensed version of Ukrainian history you could see that Ukraine was a country, always wanted to be an independent country, and remains an independent country despite Russian best efforts;
- Ukrainian language is not a real one (or even: Ukrainian language was invented at Austrian General Staff). I think that’s the case of projecting. Ukrainian language remains rather similar to Old Ukrainian language used in Kievan Rus’ and to Polish and Belarusian languages so you can more or less understand them if you know Ukrainian. Russian language is quite different, based on Old Ukrainian and Church Slavonic with some features not found in Ukrainian or Belarusian language like heavy stress (but you can find it in Mongolian language). Even funnier is that the first Russian grammar was made by a Ukrainian and later the language rules were mostly revised and updated by people of German origin;
- Ukrainian culture does not exist. Despite the best efforts of Russians (just see for yourself what Ems Ukaz was and that it was not the first of its kind either), Ukrainian culture existed back then even if a lot of it was appropriated by Russians (I dare you to look what Yevhen Hrebinka is famous for). Or there’s another fun episode: in the beginning of XX century Hnat Hotkevych re-discovered some bandura players and revived the art of bandura playing. In 1930 most of the bandurists were dead (many believe they were gathered in one place under pretence of some conference and shot) and the monument to them installed in Kharkiv in 1997 gets vandalised rather regularly. So this myth is more of a wishful thinking plus covering up a theft (the same as they did with history);
- Russia brought civilisation to Ukraine. As usual, it was the other way round. For the majority of time Ukrainians were more literate than Russians, centuries ago Ukraine supplied Russians with clergy and officials (and see the example with Russian language grammar above). And even in Soviet times a good deal of engineers were Ukrainians or had Ukrainian origin;
- Ukrainian nationalists were Nazi collaborators and are very active up to this day. It is true that Ukrainian nationalists collaborated with Germany, but after they’ve declared Ukrainian republic in Lviv they were arrested and mostly killed. Some of the leaders were kept alive in the concentration camps in case they can be useful later. It’s mostly thanks to Soviet propaganda that demonised Stepan Bandera that many Ukrainians remember him, otherwise it would be “well, there was such historic figure but he’s no longer relevant”. And nationalistic parties have never gained much influence in the parliament after the independence. Similarly nobody was oppressing Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, not even in the Western part. Now the things might change but I guess people speaking German were not popular in Europe in 1950s either;
- Russia liberated Ukraine from Nazis and it’s so ungrateful. As mentioned in the history section, it was Ukrainian forces that had to hold the defence and be waster during counter-offence. And people have not forgotten the other nice things like Holodomor and other famines of 1930s and 1940s, how Russians behaved in 1939 in “liberated” part of Ukraine, how lots of valuables from museums and factories were evacuated during the war and never returned or only a part of it was returned (just read the history of Uralvagonzavod), there are other cases that demonstrate that Russians have not earned gratitude;
- Ukraine survived only because of Russian gas. And as usual it’s a mix of lies and covering up for the theft. In 1950s Moscow used natural gas from the West Ukraine (and they even had to disguise it as something else so that Ukrainian resistance wouldn’t blow it up). There are gas deposits in Kharkiv region as well (and some oil was pumped in Okhtyrka district in addition to the oil deposits in Western Ukraine). The situation around gas in 1990s-2000s was complicated and caused (IMO) by both countries profiting off cheap gas and the differences in gas prices for the population and for the industry. After the 2014 events Ukraine started to buy gas at European market and it was not much worse than before (except maybe for certain oligarchs);
- Russians are the elder brethren of Ukrainians. First of all, Ukrainians as a nation are older. Second, your actions have shown what kind of people you are so you’re disowned relatives at best. Go after your warship!
So what do I think about it in general?
Final thoughts about Russia
Russia has been a prison at almost any period of its existence. Wikipedia quotes the state census of 1857 that out of 62.5 millions of total population 23 millions were private serfs and about the same number of people were state peasants who were not much different from private serfs either.
In Soviet times after the initial period of freedom they’ve decided to re-introduce internal passports and the system of propiska which restricted internal migration (and going abroad for a trip let alone emigrating was extremely hard). Additionally the country in Stalin’s times was characterised as a bus—one man driving, half of people sitting (in the camps) and the other half of people shaking (or watching over the first half in other variant of the joke). It was a mass system of forced labour and rather ineffective at that. To give one example, Salekhard-Igarka railway was built by camp prisoners with an effective rate of one dead prisoner per one sleeper tie laid—and the best part is that this railway turned out to be rather useless. So thanks to such wonderful state system being a prisoner was not shameful.
Then in 1990s it was a turmoil and the economics was not functioning properly. Those who could sold leftovers of the Soviet legacy or natural resources, those who could not in many cases became bandits and since they had money it was seemed as an attractive occupation. Many of the bands were formed by ex-military, ex-policemen or ex-KGB people (and thanks to Andropov there were too many KGB agents for any meaningful job). And one ex-KGB agent from one of those gangs later became a dictator and brought both his cronies and ways of dealing with others to the state level.
It’s hard to believe but criminal way of living has been romanticised there (even if 2000s were rather good and wealthy years for Russia) to the point that most Russians may not recite any poem of their classic poets but know prison jargon quite well and the answer to a riddle about two chairs that’s supposedly asked to an each new prisoner by older inmates. Their police works like legalised criminal gang, their army is not that different from the prison either, their political system resembles prison hierarchy as well.
And then comes the ideology…
The claim that Moscow is the third Rome is about as old as Russia itself (while in Kievan Rus’ knyaz could have a daughter of Byzantine emperor for a wife, they were proud to be who they were and not somebody else). Considering what other countries made claims to be a successor of Roman Empire it puts Russia into a nice company already.
Then you have a schizophrenic chauvinism, where they both claim to be the greatest nation of the world and having no regard for their own people (one writer explained it by Russian community being large but too vague to define so the definition of “own people” changes depending on purpose).
Then you have imperialistic ambitions for more and more territory—instead of developing already enormous chunk of landmass they have. In Russian empire times they tried to conquer more and more land but were afraid to have external colonies in fear they go independent (that’s why they were eager to sell Alaska and Fort Ross colony for a rather small sum of money). In Soviet times they tried to bring back countries lost after 1917 (did not work with Finland thankfully) and tried to get more countries into Socialistic (concentration) camp. Now they’re trying to restore Soviet glory (which makes it the third empire or the third Reich more precisely).
Then you have a fascistic ideology based on worshipping World War II (or rather the part of it that does not paint USSR in a bad light) with random outbursts against other nations (like Poles, Czechs or Estonians) in the best traditions of Orwell’s two minutes hate. This is partly because it was the apex moment of Soviet glory (good reputations, a lot of influence and large territories conquered from the neighbours) partly because (as it turned out) they wanted to repeat a war in the same fashion.
Then you have a mindset of a typical criminal, believing that you can say any lie no matter how easily disprovable it is and if you’re caught you can simply say another lie and another. The same mindset gives the following fine strategy as well: at first you demand proofs and if those are delivered you simply say “so what?” and keep doing what you were doing while your opponent is shocked by your chutzpah.
And finally you have both yearning for the great past and dissatisfaction with the reality resulting in a willingness to revise the reality by starting a war. 1930s Germany was in the same situation but it was caused by losing the previous war and bad economic situation because of that, now it’s caused by a bad economic situation from the mismanagement (if you’re a gang extracting rent from natural resources while your underlings extract rent by extorting private businesses you have an ideal case of trickle-down economy that works good only so long as gas/oil price is high enough).
As the result you get war done in the best traditions of both the Red Army trying to conquer Finland (with equal incompetence and losses) and the SS troops (they got infamous not for their military prowess either).
And one last final thing I want to mention that is related to the current topic: how Russians are keeping words, contracts or treaties. European countries operate on reputation and keeping your word no matter now matter what. In Russia it seems to be the opposite: you’re more respected if you’ve managed to swindle somebody with your contract. On the one side they think they can denounce any treaties at any time their conditions are not good enough for them, on the other side when they provide something they behave worse than any copyright holder. That was the case with Crimea when they decided that it’s been long enough a part of Ukraine and should be taken back (because it was theirs by some treaty with Turkey in XVIII century), this is the case with UN where they recognize its activity only when it either favours them or they can veto it. That was the case with their natural gas and the peculiar “take it or pay regardless” scheme where you were supposed to pay for a fixed amount of natural gas no matter if you’ve used it in full or just part of it or none at all—and you were forbidden to re-sell the leftovers. After 2014 when Ukraine stopped buying gas from Russia and started to buy (the same) gas on European market they wanted to forbid other countries to sell it to Ukraine. Sounds like a licensing scheme instead of commodity sell, doesn’t it?
Despite all that I don’t hate Russia or Russians, I’m merely deeply disgusted by them. But I’d have nothing about them living in whatever way they like in their own country without trying to threaten let alone invade any other country. It would be nice if they’re taught that what they’re doing is wrong (like Germans were about seventy years ago) but it’s too unrealistic.
P.S. I’ve never asked for money (because I’d started earning myself before I had this blog) but in this situation I ask to help Ukrainian Armed Forces by sending some money (here is the official page of the National Bank of Ukraine). There are enough kind people willing to help Ukrainian refugees and Ukrainians suffering from Russian attacks but somebody has to fight so those people will have a place to return to and live in safety. I’ve transferred over 30k€ and keep sending more, maybe you can help too?
