Thinking of Ukraine
I have no relatives in Ukraine, however I’ve always had strong bonds of friendship with many Ukrainians who are as dear to me as my own family. As most of the Russians I’ve always had that special feeling about our countries: the feeling of unity. I am confident admitting that I’ve always thought of Russia, Ukraine and Byelorussia as of parts of the same motherland and territory of one big nation. Therefore the old-fashioned saying “the sisterhood of nations” has never sounded to me fictitious or formalistic. Considering the fact it is mere historical truth.
I can’t sleep well at night because of what is going on in Ukraine today. It is no longer about the faraway Pakistan, Iraq or Libya, not even Serbia nor Yugoslavia. Today the tragedy has fallen on my kinsmen; their lives and well-being are at stake. It doesn’t matter what you name it: the ancestral memory of nations, kindred cultures and languages etc, we are soul mates. The awakening and comprehension the disaster has happened at your soul mate’s home frightens and hurts.
Today we all are witnessing the mastodons-with-global ambitions battle. All politicians’ attention is pinpointed upon the fighting. All are flexing muscles and brandishing arms. The events in Crimea are fueling tensions and international media space is bursting with indignation. The hot-brains are getting overheated and the media space is being shaken with propaganda broadsides, insults and threats. Nauseous hypocrisy and demagogy, infamy and blasphemy, double-speak and double-dealing; there is no room for a sensible view of things nor hope of fairness in this synonymic row. There is nothing to reassure people’s condition, i.e. of those people whose lives have just been ruined and those people whose lives may be ruined next. It is my human condition as well.
I know I share same thoughts and feelings as millions of Russian citizens today. Awful, godless and purposeless things happened in Ukraine in February. The innocent victims and sufferings I say were purposeless, because they cannot be justified.
Human lives were broken as thin strings in the hands of crazy puppeteers that pulled them in a violent temper. The puppeteers don’t care; they are casual towards broken lives. They are too busy quarrelling with other puppeteers, they threat each other with ten plagues of Egypt; throwing their arms about they are breaking hundreds of other strings. It is a crowd of crazy puppeteers of different ranks, names and titles that are sorting things out.
I like Dostoyevsky because he made me commiserate with Svidrigaylov in Crime and Punishment, since then I haven't
had a hatred for anyone, not even for those who disgust me.
I do not like politicians of every stripe and color. I would prefer to ignore their names and know nothing about politics. But politicians intimidate me; they intrude into my and my friends’ lives turning them into survival.
I like my friends (who are many) very much regardless of their national o cultural background; I cherish what makes us different as much as what we have in common.
I do not like Putin, “All the President's Men” and all the President's opposition, same as I do not like Yanukovich, all his President's Men and opposition. Neither do I like Obama, Merkel, Hollande and other Presidents, their President's Men and opposition. That is not because we belong to different social or cultural strata or these persons don’t possess personal qualities I respect.
There is a big gap between what the politicians and regular folks think about life values and goals, and what they do with them. Whatever my goals are my values won’t let me steal or usurp what is not mine, treat with indignity or stomp out someone’s life, deceive or humiliate with deception.
Most of the big-league politicians’ concerns are verbally dressed in same values as mine, but in sober fact there are only two: unlimited power and money. The most beautiful slogans are being pronounces: “democracy, justice, equality of rights, respect for territorial integrity etc.” - when sending thousands of deceived folks to commit crimes against thousands of other folks, sometimes making them to unleash what is the worst in a human creature, to behave with sickening cruelty that causes personality change.
Today the President Putin is the one to be anathematized and kicked in the teeth. I do not like him. However my dislikes of Putin is a part of Russia’s internal affairs. He is the President of my country. Neither I nor many Russian people are happy about this fact, but it doesn’t matter in the circumstances concerned.
For the rest of the world he is the President of all the Russians, many put the equal sign between this last name and “Russian people” notion. They call us aggressors, invaders, occupants and they menace us with sanctions: me, my family and my friends. The problem is that any sanctions - military or economic penalties - can not be used against Putin himself (he will safely fly away with his white cranes to his own happy tomorrow); they will be against me and my dear ones.
Not many like Putin, there is not much to like him for. Today he has brought Russian troops into Crimea. The reaction of the democratic West headed by the most remarkable “peacemaker” Mr. Obama was predictable.
What is sad is that this situation encountered patchy response in Russia, and the Russian people have shown crucial discordance of opinions regarding Putin’s actions. The response of the Russian authorities to all protests and protesters is traditional: if you protest publicly against anything the power vertical does you end in prison.
But I personally do not have any regrets for what Putin has done by bringing troops in Crimea, as far as this.
Why so?
Does Putin have self-interest in Crimea? - He certainly does.
Is it just about geopolitics? - It is nothing but that.
Will the citizens of Crimea be happy if the peninsula comes back to Russia again?- As much happy as any Russian folk whose well-being and hopes for radiant future have been usurped by Russian oligarchs together with gas and oil.
Today almost every public figure on the Russian media-landscape either enthusiastically applauses or sharply criticizes Putin’ actions. Same do ordinary people. Putin held a press-conference; he was calm, confident and precise in wording. He spoke out right things and there was no fanfare in his speech. The words he pronounced, of course, were not conforming to what I think of him and his politics that stacked against people of his country.
As long as he spoke about what has been happening in Ukraine, all he said was right from the Ukrainian Constitution and international law perspective. Probably with the exception for legitimacy of the Russian troops that are now dislocated in Crimea.
Victors don't have to justify themselves, as History teaches us. The strongest and the most aggressive regimes have always imposed their will upon other nations by both military and economic means. It has always turned into tragedy for many nameless people whose lives have been sacrificed to the blood-thirsty Moloch of the war.
The politicians do not care for simple folks’ pain, they live too far away from where we struggle for life. They have other standards of truth and life values.
They never think of an Afghan or Iraqi mother whose heart has stopped and petrified with grief when she found her baby killed with a missile meant to engage other targets. It doesn’t become the politicians’ nightmare, they call it war casualties.
We think about such things, and we care.
Horrible events have recently occurred in Ukraine. Innocent people were pulled to pieces and murdered by their own fellow Ukrainians. It was an unspeakable savagery supported by the crowd. It was a fearful vengeance for the betrayal of politicians that ruined peoples’ aspirations for normal life, a payback for poverty and humiliation.
Vengeance turned into the burning alive and the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people: police union “Berkut” combat soldiers and civilians suffered horrid fate. What could be more abominable than hatred for you neighbors, a bloodthirst that many have suddenly reveled?
There are publicly declared fascists in the present self-nominated Ukrainian government. The only government available today, that hasn’t been elected by popular vote, by the way.
However, the big-league politicians and the international opinion leaders pretend they know nothing about it. It is OK with them that the new Ukrainian government primary concern is not the fact the treasury is empty and people really and truly have no money for living. The radical-nationalists started with the prohibition on Russian language to be spoken in Ukraine, though it has always been mother tongue for at least 60% of Ukrainian population.
The Ukrainian fascists hate the Russians. They hate me and my children. They have got pretty brazen and quite explicit. Without a second thought they will torture and kill an old man, a woman or a child because they are monsters in human disguise. They will generate and lead hundreds of others of their species to dispose of those whom they don’t like simply for being Russians.
Today here in Russia we are not afraid of them. Russian women in Crimea are. Fascists may enter their house by violence at any time. Their lives and treasures may vanish at once, if a crowd tromps to death the child or a bandit shoots the husband or the father.
Thanks God, it has not happened in Crimea yet.
Any conflict can be solved by peaceful means and there is always a safe way out. “He who buys time shell win the whole lot” ( c ).
The situation being what it is now I don not care what Putins’ goals in Crimea are. If Russian troops are wanted there by people (I have spoken to my friends who live there), if military presence prevents the nightmare that has just occurred in Kiev and many Ukrainian regions I vote for it.
I do no care what foreign politicians say (keeping up peacemaking appearances), or what economic sanctions they apply against me and my children. I only care for NO MORE VICTIMS in Ukraine.
I have no illusions about Putin; he will never sweep away corruption neither stop economic dislocation in Russia. He simply doesn’t care for his fellow Russians. He sets his mind on other business, which are geopolitical Olympics of big-league guys.
I know here in Russia we are facing hard times. Can we do anything about it? I believe we must live our lives decently, be patient and kind to each other. We must not take any slogans at face value. We must not let madness to replace reason and common sense. And most importantly we must not let hostility dwell in our hearts.
I have no trust in Putin or any other leader. I have no trust in any supreme humanitarian interests if their price is “worth the tears of that one tortured child” ( c). God save us all!
I can’t sleep well at night because of what is going on in Ukraine today. It is no longer about the faraway Pakistan, Iraq or Libya, not even Serbia nor Yugoslavia. Today the tragedy has fallen on my kinsmen; their lives and well-being are at stake. It doesn’t matter what you name it: the ancestral memory of nations, kindred cultures and languages etc, we are soul mates. The awakening and comprehension the disaster has happened at your soul mate’s home frightens and hurts.
Today we all are witnessing the mastodons-with-global ambitions battle. All politicians’ attention is pinpointed upon the fighting. All are flexing muscles and brandishing arms. The events in Crimea are fueling tensions and international media space is bursting with indignation. The hot-brains are getting overheated and the media space is being shaken with propaganda broadsides, insults and threats. Nauseous hypocrisy and demagogy, infamy and blasphemy, double-speak and double-dealing; there is no room for a sensible view of things nor hope of fairness in this synonymic row. There is nothing to reassure people’s condition, i.e. of those people whose lives have just been ruined and those people whose lives may be ruined next. It is my human condition as well.
I know I share same thoughts and feelings as millions of Russian citizens today. Awful, godless and purposeless things happened in Ukraine in February. The innocent victims and sufferings I say were purposeless, because they cannot be justified.
Human lives were broken as thin strings in the hands of crazy puppeteers that pulled them in a violent temper. The puppeteers don’t care; they are casual towards broken lives. They are too busy quarrelling with other puppeteers, they threat each other with ten plagues of Egypt; throwing their arms about they are breaking hundreds of other strings. It is a crowd of crazy puppeteers of different ranks, names and titles that are sorting things out.
I like Dostoyevsky because he made me commiserate with Svidrigaylov in Crime and Punishment, since then I haven't
had a hatred for anyone, not even for those who disgust me.
I do not like politicians of every stripe and color. I would prefer to ignore their names and know nothing about politics. But politicians intimidate me; they intrude into my and my friends’ lives turning them into survival.
I like my friends (who are many) very much regardless of their national o cultural background; I cherish what makes us different as much as what we have in common.
I do not like Putin, “All the President's Men” and all the President's opposition, same as I do not like Yanukovich, all his President's Men and opposition. Neither do I like Obama, Merkel, Hollande and other Presidents, their President's Men and opposition. That is not because we belong to different social or cultural strata or these persons don’t possess personal qualities I respect.
There is a big gap between what the politicians and regular folks think about life values and goals, and what they do with them. Whatever my goals are my values won’t let me steal or usurp what is not mine, treat with indignity or stomp out someone’s life, deceive or humiliate with deception.
Most of the big-league politicians’ concerns are verbally dressed in same values as mine, but in sober fact there are only two: unlimited power and money. The most beautiful slogans are being pronounces: “democracy, justice, equality of rights, respect for territorial integrity etc.” - when sending thousands of deceived folks to commit crimes against thousands of other folks, sometimes making them to unleash what is the worst in a human creature, to behave with sickening cruelty that causes personality change.
Today the President Putin is the one to be anathematized and kicked in the teeth. I do not like him. However my dislikes of Putin is a part of Russia’s internal affairs. He is the President of my country. Neither I nor many Russian people are happy about this fact, but it doesn’t matter in the circumstances concerned.
For the rest of the world he is the President of all the Russians, many put the equal sign between this last name and “Russian people” notion. They call us aggressors, invaders, occupants and they menace us with sanctions: me, my family and my friends. The problem is that any sanctions - military or economic penalties - can not be used against Putin himself (he will safely fly away with his white cranes to his own happy tomorrow); they will be against me and my dear ones.
Not many like Putin, there is not much to like him for. Today he has brought Russian troops into Crimea. The reaction of the democratic West headed by the most remarkable “peacemaker” Mr. Obama was predictable.
What is sad is that this situation encountered patchy response in Russia, and the Russian people have shown crucial discordance of opinions regarding Putin’s actions. The response of the Russian authorities to all protests and protesters is traditional: if you protest publicly against anything the power vertical does you end in prison.
But I personally do not have any regrets for what Putin has done by bringing troops in Crimea, as far as this.
Why so?
Does Putin have self-interest in Crimea? - He certainly does.
Is it just about geopolitics? - It is nothing but that.
Will the citizens of Crimea be happy if the peninsula comes back to Russia again?- As much happy as any Russian folk whose well-being and hopes for radiant future have been usurped by Russian oligarchs together with gas and oil.
Today almost every public figure on the Russian media-landscape either enthusiastically applauses or sharply criticizes Putin’ actions. Same do ordinary people. Putin held a press-conference; he was calm, confident and precise in wording. He spoke out right things and there was no fanfare in his speech. The words he pronounced, of course, were not conforming to what I think of him and his politics that stacked against people of his country.
As long as he spoke about what has been happening in Ukraine, all he said was right from the Ukrainian Constitution and international law perspective. Probably with the exception for legitimacy of the Russian troops that are now dislocated in Crimea.
Victors don't have to justify themselves, as History teaches us. The strongest and the most aggressive regimes have always imposed their will upon other nations by both military and economic means. It has always turned into tragedy for many nameless people whose lives have been sacrificed to the blood-thirsty Moloch of the war.
The politicians do not care for simple folks’ pain, they live too far away from where we struggle for life. They have other standards of truth and life values.
They never think of an Afghan or Iraqi mother whose heart has stopped and petrified with grief when she found her baby killed with a missile meant to engage other targets. It doesn’t become the politicians’ nightmare, they call it war casualties.
We think about such things, and we care.
Horrible events have recently occurred in Ukraine. Innocent people were pulled to pieces and murdered by their own fellow Ukrainians. It was an unspeakable savagery supported by the crowd. It was a fearful vengeance for the betrayal of politicians that ruined peoples’ aspirations for normal life, a payback for poverty and humiliation.
Vengeance turned into the burning alive and the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people: police union “Berkut” combat soldiers and civilians suffered horrid fate. What could be more abominable than hatred for you neighbors, a bloodthirst that many have suddenly reveled?
There are publicly declared fascists in the present self-nominated Ukrainian government. The only government available today, that hasn’t been elected by popular vote, by the way.
However, the big-league politicians and the international opinion leaders pretend they know nothing about it. It is OK with them that the new Ukrainian government primary concern is not the fact the treasury is empty and people really and truly have no money for living. The radical-nationalists started with the prohibition on Russian language to be spoken in Ukraine, though it has always been mother tongue for at least 60% of Ukrainian population.
The Ukrainian fascists hate the Russians. They hate me and my children. They have got pretty brazen and quite explicit. Without a second thought they will torture and kill an old man, a woman or a child because they are monsters in human disguise. They will generate and lead hundreds of others of their species to dispose of those whom they don’t like simply for being Russians.
Today here in Russia we are not afraid of them. Russian women in Crimea are. Fascists may enter their house by violence at any time. Their lives and treasures may vanish at once, if a crowd tromps to death the child or a bandit shoots the husband or the father.
Thanks God, it has not happened in Crimea yet.
Any conflict can be solved by peaceful means and there is always a safe way out. “He who buys time shell win the whole lot” ( c ).
The situation being what it is now I don not care what Putins’ goals in Crimea are. If Russian troops are wanted there by people (I have spoken to my friends who live there), if military presence prevents the nightmare that has just occurred in Kiev and many Ukrainian regions I vote for it.
I do no care what foreign politicians say (keeping up peacemaking appearances), or what economic sanctions they apply against me and my children. I only care for NO MORE VICTIMS in Ukraine.
I have no illusions about Putin; he will never sweep away corruption neither stop economic dislocation in Russia. He simply doesn’t care for his fellow Russians. He sets his mind on other business, which are geopolitical Olympics of big-league guys.
I know here in Russia we are facing hard times. Can we do anything about it? I believe we must live our lives decently, be patient and kind to each other. We must not take any slogans at face value. We must not let madness to replace reason and common sense. And most importantly we must not let hostility dwell in our hearts.
I have no trust in Putin or any other leader. I have no trust in any supreme humanitarian interests if their price is “worth the tears of that one tortured child” ( c). God save us all!