RUSSIA = UN-CIVILIZED

What I have learned about Russians in the last three years and seven months, since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Quote from our recent interview with the Ukrainian pianist and activist Olga Krychynska

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

For every murder, every rape, every child kidnapped, every apartment block bombed at night, every child’s limb amputated, every international norm and law broken, every drone attack on airports in the West, cyberattacks on our banking systems or electricity grids, mysterious assassinations around Europe – Russia will remain the pariah of Europe for even longer. And so will the Russians themselves.

It amazes me that they do not understand that.

Today, Russians are people whose hand we do not want to shake, faces we do not want to see in Europe, lies and manipulations we despise. Russians are people who may come for the shopping or sunshine in Europe, or to launder their dirty money, but they clearly do not share our values, they do not respect our way of living. Or, indeed, the borders of our countries. In short, people who have decided that they do not belong to our civilization.

Or to any civilization really; Russians may live relatively well in Moscow and St Petersburg, but in large areas of Russia people are kept in un-civilized poverty, without roads or running water or indoor toilets, because the Zar and his croonies have stolen all the wealth.

At the beginning of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, I often discussed with my Ukrainian friends whether this was ‘Putin’s war’ – or whether ‘all Russians’ were to blame. Highly educated, open-minded, well-travelled Ukrainian friends would tell me that “They are all evil!”, “I want all Russians to die!”

For a while, I argued that we should keep an open mind – “good Russians do exist, you know that”, I would tell my Ukrainian friends.

They would tell me that they could not see or hear any.

As the Russian rape of Ukraine has continued and deepened and gotten even more perverse, I have been looking for those ‘good Russians’ to appear. Hoping against hope. But nothing. Nobody. Practically not a word.

I am not naive, I understand that speaking out against oppression and war in Russia today is extremely dangerous. But when we every day – the contrast could be any starker - observe how brave and imaginative the Ukrainians have been in the defense of their outgunned, invaded country, as well as twice in the last 20 years standing up to corrupt and brutal rulers, I despair that we almost never hear dissent among Russians.

I despair when I, on a daily basis, see pathetic, immoral demonstrations of sycophancy – songs, poems about the greatness of Tsar Putin, statues of Stalin being erected, utterly idiotic re-writing of history – stupidity and cowardice that we hoped had been resigned to the scrapheap of history, but now instead will define Russia for generations. Again.

We see that even the Russian (so-called) opposition have trouble finding the guts and brains to tell the world in no uncertain terms that the invasion of Ukraine was and is wrong. And that the Russian assaults on Georgia and Russian chauvinism and messing about in many corners of the former Soviet Union is indefensible and need to stop.

Where are the warnings from the Russian opposition to their Russian compatriots that such cowardice - or maybe it is to do with their convictions? - will only lead to decade-long isolation of Russia and Russians?

I see the appalling, disgusting behavior of many Russians living in Western Europe – demonstrations against and attack on Ukrainian refugees, chauvinism and pure, primitive and repulsive conduct - and I feel that I have run out of arguments for ‘there are good Russians.’

I still hope that there are some left, but we are not seeing them or hearing them.

We are now three years and seven months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine – and my Ukrainian friends are certainly right when they say that this war is no longer only Putin’s. It belongs to the Russians, all Russians. And it will for decades.

Russia will never be able to conquer Ukraine - or the Ukrainians. The ones of us who knew Ukraine before 24 February 2022 knew that. I recently wrote about that here; but we should not forget that many in the West preferred to place their well-fed behinds on the fence, displaying an appalling lack of principles, closing their eyes and ears or simply being too busy counting their dirty money made in Russia.

Neither Russia’s continued, vicious bombing of Ukraine nor its attack on and provocations in Western Europe will ever secure it anything positive, just hate and disgust. Russia’s war is pointless. It is a dead-end.

And still they continue.

Russia has come to stand for ugly aggression, bullying, primitiveness, in short, KGB methods, no plans, no construction, no ideas – just rolling in with tanks or dropping bombs with the sole goal of ruining human beings, lives, places, futures out of bitterness. The dangerous bitterness of losers, of people with no self-esteem.

UNCIVILIZED.

Earlier this week, we published an interview with the Ukrainian pianist and activist Olga Krychynska. She expressed much better than I can, what this is about, and with more right.

I asked Olga how she would like to see this war end?