Anton Shekhovtsov: A year after Russia’s invasion the West finally discovers what Ukrainians stand for
Editor’s Note: This article was commissioned by Voxeurop and republished by the Kyiv Independent with permission. The original published article may be found on Voxeurop's website. The opinions expressed in our op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.
Just two weeks before the most dramatic escalation of Russia's war against Ukraine in February 2022, colleagues from the Slovak think tank GLOBSEC asked me and other experts in the field to provide a short commentary on possible scenarios of the Russian aggression.
Readers will recall that, at that time, American and British leaders – informed by the intelligence provided by their agencies – were actively engaged in raising awareness among allies of Russian preparations for a massive attack against Ukraine, and, simultaneously, in attempts to dissuade the Russian leadership from implementing their malign intentions.
As Russia was amassing dozens of thousands of troops on the borders with Ukraine, I, like many other Europeans, hoped that Moscow’s sabre-rattling was not serious, and believed that although we could not dismiss the possibility of further Russian invasion of Ukraine, such a development was still the least likely scenario.
Those hopes and beliefs were underpinned by a rationalism that insisted that the Kremlin’s fear of crippling Western sanctions would convince the Russian leadership to think twice before making further incursions into Ukraine’s territory after several years of a low-intensity conflict in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine.
The same rationalism also maintained that Moscow would find it difficult to pay the incredibly high human cost of the escalation.
Moscow's 'moral concerns'
But that rationalism was in conflict with yet another, equally legitimate rationalism that renounced the well-minded considerations about Moscow’s presumed economic sobriety and moral concerns, and persisted that everything we knew about the Putin regime pointed at the inevitability of the Russian military escalation in Ukraine.
Why would anyone doubt – that rationalism inquired – the worst intentions of Moscow after it unlawfully and in violation of all international norms annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014?
Why would anyone believe Russia’s assurances that it was not going to invade Ukraine after it lied about pretty much everything it had been doing in Ukraine since 2014?
The failure of practical rationalism to foresee the bloodiest war in Europe since the Second World War and the triumph of empirical rationalism – but, perhaps most importantly, the sheer scale of the tragedy of the Russian invasion – opened up a way of looking at socio-political developments in Russia before Feb. 24, 2022, through the perspective of what happened afterward.
When the Russian authorities impoverished distant Russian regions, driving people living there to destitution, were they not building a pool of socially desperate volunteers for the war against Ukraine?
When they encouraged producing films, books, and shows that derided the Ukrainian nation as a devious and treacherous people, and vilified Ukrainians proud of their national identity as backward fascists, were they not striving to facilitate future Russian war crimes in Ukraine through their dehumanizing efforts?
When they methodically eliminated – through intimidation, imprisonment, and murder – independent media, civil society, and political opposition, were they not preemptively destroying any sizable anti-war movement in Russia?
When they turned Russian prisons and colonies into a monstrous behemoth of torture, degradation and inhumanity, were not they creating the future cadre for cannon fodder to be used by the Wagner Group mercenaries and other Russian state-affiliated terrorist organizations?
When they fostered distrust among their citizens through sexism, hate, and normalization of domestic violence, were not they getting the Russian population ready to be turned into an obedient, alienated, and hopeless mass of people who would continue serving the civilian engines of the Russian war machine?
