More than a break, it is a chasm that has widened between Russians and Ukrainians. On February 24, 2022, the two peoples, once so close, plunged into the horror of war. A huge wound that confirms the abyss that separates them today and has continued to widen for thirty years. In his book Never brothers? Ukraine and Russia: a post-Soviet tragedy (Seuil, 2022), Anna Colin Lebedev, lecturer at the University of Paris-Nanterre and specialist in post-Soviet societies, explores the distinct trajectories followed by the two societies since the fall of the USSR. And gives essential reading keys to the conflict that has been ravaging Ukraine for more than six months.
L’Express: Is the notion of “brother peoples”, widely put forward by Putin, a way for Russia to dominate and subjugate Ukraine?
Anna Colin Lebedev: Highlighting this fraternity between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples is old and indeed reveals a form of inequality. More generally, beyond Ukraine, this concept of “brother peoples” has also been used to describe all the peoples of the Soviet Union. But behind it was implied that there was a big brother, Russia, and little brothers, its neighbors. This notion of “brother peoples” has often pursued an instrumental and not always avowable goal: a way for Moscow to ask, or to demand certain things from its neighbours.
In the words of Vladimir Putin, the designation of “brotherly peoples”, even sometimes his affirmation that Russians and Ukrainians form the “same people”, is a means of decreeing a bond so strong that it would impose itself on the populations, that whether they like it or not, despite international law. Something that would be deeply engraved in the DNA of both companies and would make their common destiny unquestionable.
But Ukraine does not recognize itself in this qualification of “brother peoples”…
Worse, it is an insult for the Ukrainians, because they see in it an attempt to annihilate Ukrainian specificity. Ukraine would be just a twin of Russia gone wrong. It is an extremely violent idea, which Ukrainians overwhelmingly reject.
In a way, this idea of brotherhood is used by Moscow to crush Ukraine. For the Russian political power, it is a means of justifying the obliteration of the Ukrainian State. For its part, the Russian population uses this notion to convince itself that the Ukrainians are going astray, that they must be saved and that they have been manipulated by the West, which made them believe that they were Ukrainians! In this story, the Russians do not grant them the ability to decide for themselves, and I think this is one of the essential factors in the rupture between the two peoples.
What are the main stages of this rupture that you describe in your book?
There are several of them. Before the breakup, there was first a distancing. After the fall of the USSR, Russians and Ukrainians began to become more and more different. The two countries have followed paths where their perception of themselves and their history has diverged considerably. The Maidan revolution in Ukraine, in the winter of 2013-2014, paved the way for the break. The Russian power, which supported President Viktor Yanukovych, who was contested by the crowd, was perceived as hostile to Ukraine. If Ukrainians were already critical of Vladimir Putin, anti-Kremlin sentiment has grown considerably in society. This hostility, however, was only aimed at the Russian political elite at that time, not yet its population.
A fracture of the link between the two societies occurred a few months later, during the annexation of Crimea by Russia. The popular jubilation in Russia, which followed this annexation, was felt like a slap in the face by the Ukrainians. From then on, the reproaches of the Ukrainians began to be aimed at the Russian people. However, between 2014 and 2022, this break was not yet complete. Within mixed families, we continued to talk to each other, to try to convince the other. There was this feeling among some Ukrainians that the Russian population had a biased view, because they were victims of misinformation in Russia.
In your book, you write that the massive Russian support for the war in Ukraine was “a terrible shock for the Ukrainians”. Was this support the fatal blow?
Absolutely. The Russian people’s non-resistance to Ukraine’s aggression has introduced what I call a “gulf” between the two peoples. Until then, the Ukrainians said to themselves that the Russians did not know what was happening in Ukraine. But with the war, it no longer became possible not to know. In addition, the exactions of the Russian army against the civilians, in particular the violence and the massacres which we were able to observe, as in Boutcha, considerably marked the Ukrainian spirits. They were ordinary Russian soldiers, massacring ordinary Ukrainians.
Priests pray in front of a mass grave with new corpses, in the small Ukrainian town of Boutcha, on April 7, 2022.
afp.com/RONALDO SCHEMIDT
It was therefore no longer possible to blame only the Kremlin. From there, the Ukrainians considered that the Russians were no longer just in error, but collectively responsible for the war and its atrocities. For many Ukrainians, what is taking place on their territory is the implementation of a genocide, so in their eyes the Russian population has become an accomplice and executor of a genocide. Of course, a chasm of this type is abyssal.
In this context, is negotiating an end to the fighting still possible?
It seems difficult at this point. From the Ukrainian point of view, Russia has a genocidal project. However, one does not stop a genocide by decreeing a ceasefire and by negotiating to redraw the borders. This is an existential conflict for Ukraine: either it manages to defeat Russia – which means that Moscow renounces all territorial claims and influence on the Ukrainian state – or it ceases to exist. .
On the Russian side, the objective of the war is difficult to define and has changed significantly since the beginning of the conflict. Initially, the idea was that an autonomous Ukraine should not exist, and that Moscow has a big mission to restore Russian influence on its neighborhood. Would a few territories torn from Ukraine really be enough to settle the conflict? With the current power in Moscow, a ceasefire and a territorial division agreement may just postpone this war. And incidentally, would allow the Russian army to replenish and attack in a few years with much more force.
In your chapter devoted to the “Russian world”, you question the colonial nature of the Soviet, then Russian, regime. Does this war in Ukraine have a colonial dimension?
This is the analysis made by some of my colleagues, such as historian Timothy Snyder. There are elements that bring this situation closer to a colonial situation. But there are also different elements, compared to our classic definition of what is a colonial power, what is a colonized country and what is a war of decolonization. Russia’s war in Ukraine will probably cause us to reconsider what is colonial, and perhaps, ultimately, to define Soviet and post-Soviet colonialism. It would not have the same contours as our classic definition of colonialism, but would share certain aspects.
Which ?
For example, this idea that the impact of the colonial situation survives well beyond the purely legal situation. That is to say that a state can cease to be a colony, and another state to be a colonizer, but the effect of colonization will remain perceptible in societies and politics for a very long time. But also that the colonizer is the one who defines the culture, the political organization and the language that are legitimate in the colonized country. These are elements that are clearly found in Ukraine. It is therefore a field of research to be built. And it is interesting to note that a number of former Soviet republics increasingly recognize themselves in this colonial reading.
Has Moscow’s ability to impose Russian culture and language, as benchmarks, historically served as an instrument of domination over its neighbours?
Absolutely, in addition to other logics of economic and political domination, and a certain inequality of opportunity when one came from the periphery of the USSR. It should however be kept in mind that some Soviet Republics were more peripheral than others! In this gradation, Ukraine was rather well located, and one could very well make a career in Moscow when one came from kyiv.
On the other hand, there is no Soviet leader who was from Central Asia. The same is true for the Baltic countries. Moreover, even inside Russia, there are social groups, among the ethnic minorities who, although Russian citizens, also consider themselves to have been oppressed, and are still victims of a very strong racism.
In the conclusion of your book, you write: “We thought, wrongly, that the accounts of the Soviet Union were settled when it dissolved without major conflict in 1991. The real price to pay is given to us today .” Do other former Soviet republics feel threatened?
Perceptions are changing. Admittedly, certain former Soviet republics already felt in danger vis-a-vis Russia, in particular the Baltic countries. But this has been considerably reinforced in other states, such as Moldova. Other countries of the former USSR, closer to Moscow, are also more on the alert. We see, for example, that the Kazakh government is cautious in this war in Ukraine: trying not to offend Moscow, but without being wholeheartedly with it. Belarusian civil society is also watching with concern what Russia is doing on the territory of its neighbour, with the fear that it could also happen to it one day. In these countries allied with Moscow, one could see the emergence of social logics reconsidering the sympathy which could exist with regard to the Russians.
The title of your book, Never brothers?, remains interrogative. Does this mean that there could one day be some form of reconciliation between Russians and Ukrainians?
This question mark is indeed the keyword of my title. The title, but without the question mark, originally comes from a quote from a Ukrainian poet, who in 2014 claimed that Russians and Ukrainians would “never be brothers”. However, there is still a common base between the two peoples, a partly shared past, and interpersonal ties. How long, what awareness on the Russian side, what apologies and reparations from Moscow will it take for the two peoples to agree to talk to each other again? We do not know. But this will be measured in generations.