Ukrainians shelter

Ukrainians shelter in soviet era metro / air raid shelter. Photo: AP

We, the NCW editorial squad, welcome back Halyna, who, as one of the earliest contributors to NCW, returns to share her thoughts and insights on current events in Ukraine.

By Halyna Mokrushyna

I see pictures of my fellow Ukrainians sleeping in subway stations in Kyiv and Kharkiv, with their kids, pets, blankets, warm apparel. These subway stations were built as bomb shelters during Soviet times, to protect civilians in case of state of war. They were built in the land in which Ukrainians and Russians were brotherly peoples, and the vast majority did not divide friends and family by ethnic origin.

Now Ukrainians are running to these flop shelters because Russian troops are advancing towards Kyiv, as I write this, and Russians are already in Kharkiv/Kharkov, and I see videos of local people greeting Russian soldiers as liberators. I also scout videos of a Russian soldier captured by Ukrainians. He is continuing with his hands tied behind his back and I hear a male voice ordering him to say: 'Celebrity to Ukraine'. He refuses and says instead: "Celebrity to Russian federation".

In one of his addresses to the Ukrainian nation, the old comedian turned president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, responding to Vladimir Putin'due south words most the pro-Nazi power holders in Ukraine, said that there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Zelensky said that he himself is a grand son of a Soviet soldier who saved the world from Nazis. And he said this in Russian.

However information technology is nether his presidency that Ukraine became a monolingual country when, according to the new law on languages, the Russian language was banned from schools, universities, public spaces. The Russian language that is a female parent tongue for millions of Ukrainians. And information technology is under Zelensky's presidency that official ceremonies honoring the Nazi collaborator, nationalist leader Bandera were held throughout Ukraine.

Most Ukrainians voted for Zelensky in 2019 because he promised to end the state of war against Donbass and bring slice to Ukraine. The merely fashion to achieve this was through the implementation of the Minsk agreements, signed in Feb 2015 between Ukraine and the pause-abroad republics of Donetsk and Lugansk after difficult and tense negotiations between the Chancellor of Deutschland Angela Merkel, President of France François Hollande, President of Russia Vladimir Putin, and the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. Essentially, these agreements provided for an autonomous status of Donbass within Ukraine, with Donbass' right to keep Russian equally the official language, to develop close economic ties with neighbouring Russian regions, to accept their own judges and local forces of order. The Minsk agreements were signed past the OSCE] Administrator Heidi Tagliavini, second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov, and the leaders of Donetsk People's Democracy Alexander Zakharchenko and the leader of the Lugansk People's Democracy Igor Plotnitsky.

Information technology was a compromise, and as any compromise, nobody was totally satisfied with it. But these agreements were a road map to end the ceremonious war in Ukraine, where the fighting sides were supported by the West, on 1 side, and by Russia, on the other, to preclude the escalation of the conflict on the global level betwixt the collective West and Russia. Yet Ukraine did non keep its part of the agreement. Twelvemonth later year, Russia has been waiting on Ukraine watching how Ukrainian regular army shelled Donetsk and Lugansk, killing thousands of civilians, watching how in Kyiv the postal service-Euromaidan government was adopting laws glorifying Nazi collaborators, condemning the Soviet past and Soviet achievements, banning the Russian language.

Moscow has appealed many times to Paris and Berlin to put pressure on Kyiv. Nothing but evasive promises and false assurances came from the loftier offices in Europe and Washington.

And nonetheless the Due west ignited the flame in Ukraine by giving Ukrainians the same false promises to welcome them in the European Marriage, to take them in NATO, while knowing all as well well that these promises will never exist kept. And information technology is the West who said nix when neo-Nazi paramilitary was driving the violence on Euromaidan, when multicultural bilingual Ukraine was burning in flames on Maidan, and when Kyiv sent troops in April 2014 to crush the Russian spring in Donetsk and Lugansk

And at present Ukrainians are paying with blood and death for their naivety and the lack of understanding of the fundamental geopolitical forces that shape the world we live in. They wanted a improve life and European salaries. Who can blame them? But the route to that life leads through pluralism, tolerance, respect for law and the opinions of others. And all these autonomous values that the Due west proclaims so loudly and proudly were non embraced past all in Ukraine.

At that place is so much to say about the causes of this tragedy. But I will just add together one comparison for my Canadian friends: Ukraine is the neighbor of ane of the greatest political and military powers of the world, exactly equally Canada has an elephant neighbor down south. And Canada almost ever follows in the footsteps of the US when it comes to strange policy and military actions abroad. The US is also the biggest trade partner of Canada. Can you imagine all the repercussions if these ties were suddenly cut?

Everybody contributed to the eruption of the war in Ukraine. It will probably end by the victory of Russian troops. From what I have seen, they deploy all the efforts to spare civilians in Ukraine. Russians did not desire this war. Merely the commonage West, lead past Washington, cornered them. And they pushed back. For Russians, it is a defensive move, their last stand up before NATO bombs would fall on the Russian territory. When the war in Ukraine will exist over, Russia volition take necessary steps to ensure that the new government of Ukraine will swear neutrality, just as it was before Euromaidan. And I promise that this time people who will come up to ability in Ukraine will realize how important it is to exist inclusive, tolerant, and democratic.

This is but a unproblematic outline of the factors that led to the tragedy we are witnessing at present. I could keep about the West'southward interventions in Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya, Syria, Iraq. But y'all get the picture. Correct at present, European countries, 1 after another, are sending weapons to Ukraine. They volition not send troops. And the American war hawks will fight confronting Russian federation till the terminal Ukrainian. History has not taught them any lesson: Russians will fight till the end. Despite harsh economic sanctions, closure of air spaces, exclusion from sport events, despite whatever efforts to make Russian federation a pariah state. They will fight because no thing what nosotros think, they consider Ukrainians their brothers.

And the awakening will come up to Ukraine. Right now, I can merely pray that information technology comes with minimal casualties and suffering. I am a Ukrainian, and information technology hurts. I am half-Russian besides, through my begetter. I have never lived in Russia, but I grew up in the Soviet Marriage, reading bang-up Ukrainian and Russian literature, learning by heart Ukrainian and Russian poetry. I dear Russian people and Russian civilization. And I know for certain that one day, sooner than later, when canons fall silent and the dust settles, Ukrainians and Russians will get good neighbours again. And peace will reign on my native land. And Ukraine will go once again a land where all are treated every bit and respectfully, no affair the language, where the Soviet history is rehabilitated, where Ukrainians have decent salaries and prosper on their own country and do hot have to exit to piece of work on strawberry fields in Poland or on construction sites in Italy, Hellenic republic, Spain. To build such a prosperous land, Ukrainians demand Russia's assistance, and good relations with the West. This is so obvious to anybody with a common sense and sober thinking. Once the war is over, it will be up to Ukrainians to empathise it and make up one's mind for themselves what country they want to build.

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Nigh: Halyna Mokrushyna, Ph.D., is an independent researcher and journalist. Her enquiry interests include the challenges of the post-Soviet transition in Ukraine; social and economical inequality in the mail service-Soviet context; historical and cultural divisions within Ukraine; social memory and politics of memory; relations between Russian federation and Canada and the broader context of the post-cold state of war earth and relations between the East and the W. Her articles on these subjects were published on Counterpunch, Truthdig, and Truthout websites.

Editors' Note: While we don't necessarily share the views we publish on New Common cold War, we do try to provide readers with a range of views. This is because your right to make your own mind up depends on your being fully informed.