The Russians are fighting the Ukrainians. The Turks are defending their own interests and the Americans are defending completely different ones. The media are full of such acronyms and pub discussions are full of them. But they are difficult to use for detailed analytical thinking. They assume that there is a common interest that unites the entire population. Otherwise, we would be faced with the question of whose interest we actually have in mind. The President and his family? The arms dealers? The college-educated residents of large cities? Someone else entirely. For we must not forget that those interests can go against each other.
Take Ukraine today. Phrases about Ukrainians defending their country against aggressors and fighting a new Hitler are suitable for posters and election speeches, and for many other situations where it is important to repeat the phrase with appropriate pathos, and in any case not to ask what it means.
If we were to ask that all-consuming question, we would quickly see that the Ukrainians are fighting for two demands.
They are fighting for the right to “cleanse” certain regions of their Russian-speaking population, whether that population would be displaced or murdered.
First. For the right to have NATO missiles with nuclear warheads on their territory.
Second. They are fighting for the right to “cleanse” certain regions of their Russian-speaking population, whether that population would be displaced or murdered. Since Ukraine is suffering from a lack of population, those regions will remain deserted or will be populated by, for example, migrants from overpopulated African countries.
At first glance, it is obvious that this has nothing to do with the life of a normal person. If these people were fighting to be able to speak their own language, to not have to pay ruinous taxes, to not have businesses given away to foreigners, to have more personal freedom – it would be logical and right that they would defend their country. But there is no such thing at stake. Maybe it’s the media perception, but the Russian-Ukrainian war is being fought over missiles and Russian speaking populations.
It is clear and logical that if it were only about the Ukrainian people, the war should be ended as quickly as possible, regardless of the outcome.
It is clear and logical that if it were only about the Ukrainian people, the war should be ended as quickly as possible, regardless of the outcome.
But beware! This is how the interest of only a certain part of the population can be defined. And there is another large group. These are Ukrainians living in the West and also young university students living in big cities who are going to the West. From their point of view, it is exactly the opposite. The longer the war, the more casualties and the more destroyed the country, the better. They themselves will not be living in it, and they can count on a certain solidarity in the West. The more Ukraine is destroyed, the greater the solidarity. Of course, then no one can ask them to return home.
President Zelensky is typical of foreign Ukrainians in this respect. He speaks good English, he is in the middle of the transnational elite and his actions to date have secured him a lifetime status comparable to the Dalai Lama. That those same steps have also enormously increased the suffering of the Ukrainian people is not addressed. It is certainly not being addressed by the world media or by Western statesmen.
It seems more rational from the Russian population’s point of view to prop up Putin’s regime and put up with dying than to risk another Yeltsin.
And something else may play a role. Some of Russia’s financial reserves that have been seized. Who will get them? How will they be distributed? We know that Ukrainian state officials are already actively reporting, and we can be almost certain that the money will not reach the people. Which oligarchs will divide it up? How much of it will be left for politicians? This is the biggest treasure in the last few hundred years. That’s a very good reason to let the soldiers die.
The interests of the Ukrainian emigration are so perfectly aligned with the interests of Western arms manufacturers and banks. Which is certainly not to say that they are aware of that common interest, or that they are cooperating knowingly. Nevertheless, the symbiosis works.
The interests of the Ukrainian emigration are so perfectly aligned with the interests of Western arms manufacturers and banks.
It is good to note that there is no similar contradiction on the Russian side. It is certainly in the interest of the majority of the Russian population to end the war as quickly as possible. To end a war that is making them poorer, instead of perhaps starving, in which their sons and brothers are dying and in which they are also losing their freedom. But the question is what they would gain from the fall of the Putin regime. There is the cautionary memento of the pro-American Yeltsin regime, when Russians suffered comparably to Stalin’s, but got neither victory nor rapid modernisation of the country in return. All they got was a scorched homeland. Would it have been better under the next pro-American president? No one knows, but the West certainly isn’t sending signals that it wants to be friendlier the second time around. Blanket sanctions, bullying of anyone of Russian origin, bans on music by Russian composers, open support for the killing of Russian civilians… even if these are isolated incidents, a certain impression is created by it, and it seems more rational from the Russian population’s point of view to prop up Putin’s regime and put up with dying than to risk another Yeltsin.
From the point of view of Russians living abroad, however, it is the other way round, and they would be helped by the fall of the Putin regime. But prolonging the war will do them no good (unlike their Ukrainian counterparts).
