At the beginning of the war, the Ukrainians tried to appeal to the Russian people and explain why the war is wrong. Now, when the war has been going on for six months, these attempts have been forgotten, writes ‘s journalist in Ukraine, Maxim Fedorov.
“Do the Russians want war? May the meadow be silent and the whisper of the birch forests. And those who have fallen from their graves can give proof of that.”
This one Yevgeny Yevtushenko the song based on the poem became a hit in the Soviet Union in 1961. The country was still totalitarian at the time, but the focus of Soviet propaganda was anti-war.
The day before the Russian attack, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi appealed to Russians in Russian and quoted this poem.
– Do the Russians want war? I would like to answer this question. But the answer depends only on you, said Zelenskyi.
Now, half a year later, the president and people of Ukraine seem to know the answer.
At the beginning of the war, the Ukrainians had the hope that the Russians would not be able to support military operations. They encouraged the Russians to protest. In his daily speeches, the president also spoke to the Russians and asked to stop the war. Ukrainians called familiar and unfamiliar Russians and tried to explain why this war is wrong.
But nothing helped. The attack progressed, and in addition, a large number of atrocities committed by Russian soldiers were revealed.
In March, Zelenskyi called on Russians to leave Russia so that the tax rubles they paid would not go to the war. In April, he said that the Russian people must choose a side. In August, the president demanded that Western countries should close their borders to Russian citizens because they do not oppose the regime they have elected. Quite a change in a few months.
At the beginning of the war, Ukrainians sought so-called “good Russians” i.e. those public figures who oppose the Russian invasion and support Ukraine. Gradually came the understanding that “there are no good Russians”. The same imperialist features were revealed in the ideology of the opponents of the war as in the propaganda of today’s Russia, and Russian liberals defended the right of Russians to travel to Europe much more strongly than the right of Ukrainians to live.
Russian liberals defended the right of Russians to travel to Europe much more strongly than the right of Ukrainians to live.
The Ukrainians’ attempts to explain to the Russians are gradually drying up, as they fall on deaf ears. Instead, Ukrainians struggle against so-called Russiansplaining. This term means that Russians who are considered good are invited to speak in the Ukrainian media, where they explain what Ukrainians should do and how to treat Russians.
The rhetoric of fraternity hurts Ukrainians. For them, it is wrong to call the current war Putin’s war, because Putin has not personally killed Ukrainians and may not even have ordered to torture civilians or commit other war crimes.
Ukrainians remembered that Russia, regardless of its form of government, has for centuries tried to destroy the Ukrainian people and deny their aspirations for independence. Sometimes it manifested as military actions, sometimes as Russification, in the 1930s as a famine manipulated by the Soviet government. So this war is the rule rather than the exception and the madness of one man.
Exactly six months have passed since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine. Now the Ukrainians have an unequivocal answer to the question in the title: yes, the Russians want war as long as they have the weapons.
Did you have any thoughts? You can discuss the topic until 23:00 on August 25.