There are many Russia experts in German-speaking countries. It is not uncommon for some of them to think that they can also explain Ukraine, mostly through Russian glasses. Because Ukraine hasn’t managed to explain itself or be explained anywhere nearly as loudly as the oil and gas empire, we have had to and still have to put up with a lot of that. I am no longer concerned with the problem of inadequate self-declaration, but with the question of why so many signals that Russia has sent more than clearly to its western neighbors in recent years were not taken seriously or were simply swept under the carpet.
By that I don’t mean “dialogues” at the highest political level, but statements that had an impact on other areas of society and were applauded. For example, while Europe has been saying in unison on May 8th for many decades “nie wieder / never again“ repeatedly, “historical reconstructions” of the storming of the Reichstag are increasingly being held in Russia and the slogan is “we can repeat!“. Of course, we are not talking about the Second World War, but about the “Great Patriotic War”. Anyone who marched into Poland on September 1, 1939 from the east is hidden. And if it doesn’t, then the big words come out about the “historic mission to liberate the subjugated Ukrainian brother people in eastern Galicia.” Does that sound somehow familiar to you?
These thoughts cross my mind when I briefly watch the video with one of the most zealous propagandists, Vladimir Solovyov, in his TV show “An Evening with Vladimir Solovyov”. When he reports on the “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” marching in Germany – meaning the Ukrainian refugees in German cities – he becomes downright hysterical: “If you think we’re going to stop at Ukraine – think about it 300 times. Let me remind you Remember that Ukraine is only an intermediate step in guaranteeing the strategic security of the Russian Federation.“Is the message clear enough? There are hundreds of similar ones in the Russian media.
States cannot be committed to closed psychiatric hospitals
Many voices in the West have repeatedly asserted that Putin and Russia feel threatened and that their Ukraine policy is largely based on that, and that needs to be understood. Threatened from all sides, especially by Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, it was therefore necessary to form enclaves there, which apparently ensure more security for the country, which boasts the “second strongest army” in the world. I have to keep in mind that sometimes people also have paranoia, paranoid disorders that make them behave (highly) aggressively towards others. The only way to solve this problem is to put people in closed psychiatric hospitals. Among states of the world it is not so simple. Because of this, Ukraine is now losing thousands of lives and entire cities. Because the war of the “second strongest army in the world” is mostly waged from the airspace. From where Ukraine cannot do much to oppose the aggressor. Our guest, the pro-rector of a technical university in Kharkiv, who has now found refuge in Chernivtsi, says: “You cannot take Kharkiv on the ground, they would all burst into flames, be damned to them all. But from the attacks from heaven the city is defenseless.”
Read more episodes of this column here.