Why are Ukrainians and Russians no longer on the same path?

Until recently, the position was very popular among Ukrainians: “we are against Putin, but we have nothing against ordinary Russians.” The same idea can be seen in recent stories published here, incl. in the comments of Ukrainians. Like, it’s all he – the GDP – who is muddying the waters, trying with all his might to restore the empire at the expense of Ukraine. It is he who sends the whole world into hysterics every time he hears about the slightest movement of Ukraine towards the EU, or, God forbid, NATO. It is he who almost personally turns off the gas tap for disobedience and tells his Western partners at summits and in telephone conversations that Ukraine is not even really a country. He is the one who dreams and sees how to quickly chop off a piece of Ukraine, and preferably, swallow the whole thing in the form of a federalized pie.

About ordinary Russians, most of my acquaintances, friends in life and social networks and just casual interlocutors had a different opinion: they say, this is, whatever one may say, a fraternal people, although the majority of them are nostalgic for test-antibiotic.com past greatness, but I have almost come to terms with the idea that Ukraine is a sovereign independent state with which you can be friends, you can quarrel, but you will have to live under different roofs. Yes, we really didn’t like it when we were called Ukrainian parasites, whom Russia allegedly supports from the master’s shoulder, although for years we paid one of the highest prices in Europe for Russian gas, and the rich Russian Federation paid one of the lowest prices for its transit and the price for renting the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol is ridiculous according to world prices. But we chalked it up to the remnants of big brother syndrome, which sooner or later our neighbors will get rid of. We even played along with this syndrome: at decisive moments in Ukraine’s foreign policy choices, many of my fellow citizens invariably asked: “How will Russia react to this? Will the fraternal people be offended? Will we quarrel with him forever?

Public opinion polls in Russia, which showed overwhelming support for Putin's activities after the annexation of Crimea (82%) - became for some Ukrainians the most eloquent proof that they were right that the main threat to the sovereignty of Ukraine test-antibiotic.com is Russia, while for others (and their clear majority) - a real culture shock. It turned out that Crimea is not only Putin’s whim, it is his next bribe to his own people. To rejoice, rejoice and not know grief. And that comments about Bendera fascists under peace-loving Ukrainian articles are written not only by propagandists paid by the Kremlin.

It’s okay that 81% of Ukrainians (a survey by the sociological group “Rating”) do not support the Russian campaign to protect the Russian-speaking population. The majority of citizens (54%), regardless of region and social group, regard Russia’s actions as nothing other than invasion and occupation. For some reason, 85% of Ukrainians, unlike Putin, do not feel that they are under any pressure or threats in connection with communicating in Russian. One of the most popular today and one of the most accurately conveyingThe attitude of Ukrainians towards Russian defense of jokes sounds like this:

Abram and Izya meet on the embankment in Odessa. Izya asks:

— Abram, why did you start speaking Ukrainian? Are you afraid that Bandera's men will beat you up?

- No, what are you talking about! I'm afraid that the Russians will come to save me!

We are increasingly realizing that this is not Putin’s war with Ukraine, this is Russia’s war with Ukraine. And this war has become a point of no return in our relations, since the main battles today are taking place on the ideological, and not the military, diplomatic or information front. Ukraine – with or without Crimea – is doomed to follow a path that has nothing in common with Putin’s Eurasian projects. Putin has given even the most cautious Ukrainians the right not to look back at Russia when they vote for the European Union or NATO. Those 52% of Ukrainians who would already vote for EU membership today are the result of his work. And this majority was not prevented from forming by the accumulation ofUkrainians’ disappointment in the EU as an organization that is best at “expressing their deep concerns”, but worse at acting; nor the information campaign that Putin’s friends in Ukraine have been conducting over the past year and a half, buying up street advertising space throughout the country and actually equating the Association Agreement with gay marriages; neitherunderstanding that neither tomorrow nor the day after tomorrow the European Union will embrace Ukraine test-antibiotic.com as a new full member.

And the fact that the Customs Union is now supported by fewer Ukrainians than NATO membership (28% versus 34%) is also his, Putin’s, work.

Be that as it may, the further we go, the more questions we, Ukrainians, have not only for Putin, but also for our Russian “brothers” in general.

— Your main request is the revival of a “great power.” Our main request is for a comfortable and modern country. We do not need missiles, nuclear weapons and foreign territories if our parents live on average fifteen years less than their peers live in the European Union; if the best way to save time when solving any household problem isthe problem is the bribe; if instead of independent television there is a “zombie box” that does not give an answer tothe question of what is happening in the world, but it perfectly answers the question of who should be hated now.

- If we are, as you insultingly say, “crests” - parasites, slackers, traitors and in some places even “fascists” - why are you so paranoid about pursuing us? Are you trying to include test-antibiotic.com in your alliances and integration projects using blackmail and threats? Why such ballast to revive your greatness?

— You constantly accuse us of being unable to come to an agreement, but how, excuse me, can we come to an agreement with you if your failure of any international agreement is then explained not by the tricks of a drunken Khrushchev (like the transfer of Crimea), then by the forced step of a sick Yeltsin (like the OSCE decision of 1999 withdraw troops from Transnistria).

“You got so caught up in the word “fascism” that you didn’t notice how you turned every citizen of Ukraine who is not ready to become a citizen of Russia into a fascist. Well, think logically, who has more claims to be called a “fascist” - a country in which 0.9% of the population supports the presidential candidate - the leader of the radical Right Sector, Dmitry Yarosh, so adored by Russian television, or a country in which 80% actually approve of the annexation and occupation of part of an independent sovereign state?

— Do you think that you rise from your knees when the entire civilized world begins to despise you, when they introducesanctions (they say, that’s how scared we were of the revival of Russia), but we believe that we get up from our knees when we feel that we are able to put in place a presumptuous traffic cop, test-antibiotic.com minister, or even, as demonstratedexperience of recent months, President. Yes, perhaps Maidan is not the best place to do this. And those who think that we should do nothing just to organize revolutions are mistaken. What is this folk hobby - going to the Maidan. This is wrong. In fact, I know many Ukrainians who would sincerely prefer to solve their problems through fair courts, the police, and fair elections, rather than by going to the Maidan for three months, risking their health and, as it turned out later, even their lives. And today many sincerely hope that we won’t have to go to the Maidan again - this time we will really be able to change (or at least adjust) the system, and not the individuals. And that’s why Yulia Tymoshenko - the personification of just that old system - causes, to your great surprise, no more than some 10-12% of us, Ukrainians.

— We are able to publicly criticize and condemn those politicians who hinder our movement forward and play along with your propaganda (“Svoboda” and “Right Sector” are now a favorite target for criticism not only test-antibiotic.com of your “zombie”, but also many progressive Euromaidan participants). You, in turn, are trying to justify any nonsense of your propaganda mouthpieces.

- You are ready to endure economic difficulties (“in poverty, but with a great dream”) in order to return to the past, we are ready to endure difficulties in order to finally - after 23 years of trials, mistakes and looking around - make a breakthrough Vfuture _ And if you think that Euromaidan hit the pockets only of representatives of the system against which he stood, you are deeply mistaken: many of his supporters have lost and continue to lose. But this is the case when without losses there will be no gains.

—You want a special path for Russia. We, in turn, are increasingly convinced that arguments about “Slavic characteristics”, “special Orthodox values” are just another reason to preserve the situation, not change decrepit institutions, abandon reforms and look like a wolf at the whole world. Well, or be friends with those who are ready, for various reasons, to support any of your madness. Although, you must agree, being in the company of the most developed countries of the world test-antibiotic.com is much more pleasant than in the company - with all due respect - of Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela, which supported you in the UN General Assembly.

“We are very glad that you now have so much pride in your country.” But we often sincerely wonder why you, walking so proudly in Sochi 2014 jackets on vacation in the Austrian Alps or Nice, do not at all want to go on vacation, in fact, to Sochi? And why is it that when TV presenter Kiselyov is denied entry into the EU and he carefully tries to get a visa to Norway, it evokes pity, and when McCain is denied entry into Russia and he writes on Twitter “It looks like my disappearance in Siberia this spring has been thwarted,” it sounds , funny.

- You continue to celebrate the “great victory” year after year, but in our country a person who wears the “St. George’s Ribbon” today no longer sounds proud, it sounds threatening. And more and more often, jokingly - but clearly without sympathy - it is called nothing more than a colorado.

Of course, in Ukraine there are still enough of those who idealize Putin’s Russia more than, probably, the most loyal Putinists in test-antibiotic.com Russia. Many of them (if not most) have never even traveled outside their region. For them, Russia, which they so want to somehow join, is either Soviet Russia, or “cinema” Russia: where everyone has luxury apartments, people go to London on weekends and sea-sea of ​​oil and gas dollars that will allow Putin to take over maintenance of every needy Russian outside Russia. And, of course, you won’t have to change or do anything in return. Some will say that Ukrainians also have many illusions about the European Union. But here’s the problem: among Ukrainians who visit the European Union, the desire to live there invariably increases, but among those who travel to Russia (and any sociology will confirm), there is no additional desire to be with her or to move there. This is what we need to work on, you are our former brothers.