Aidonian's blog

Its been a couple of weeks since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. So far, its a brutal war with not only soldiers fighting the Russians, but ordinary Ukrainians and foreigners as well.

In this post I want to address certain things that I find troublesome.

Hatred and discrimination against Russians and Russian speaking people

This one pisses me off to no end. I love the Russian language. I think its a beautiful language. This war has created a rift between Russians and Ukrainians. Ukrainians and Russians do share a common history, and to a extent a language as well.

This war has created a animosity towards Russians, but also towards Russian speaking people in general, because most people can’t tell apart if a person is from Russia or Belarus, Latvia, Ukraine, etc… This animosity is no different from the ones Arabs faced after 9/11 or Asians after the pandemic started.

There is a real sense that there is a hatred towards Russians. I get that Ukrainians are mad. I get it. But turn that hatred towards the political leadership of Russia, or Russian forces in Ukraine. Not towards ordinary Russians who live in Europe. They can’t do anything about the situation so don’t blame them for what is going on in Ukraine. Same goes for Europeans and Americans as well.

The Russians I have met so far, are kind, decent, friendly. They don’t deserve this treatment. I have been hearing all sorts of things about receiving hate messages tot threats, harassment, etc… This got to stop. The longer the war lasts, more of this will happen.

Sanctions don’t work

This might come off as controversial for most Europeans, but the sanctions against Russia won’t work. They don’t work because it will affect only the working class people, the ordinary people. Most of them didn’t chose this. With all these companies leaving Russia or don’t operate within Russia, you will end up with two options. Option 1: the public turns against Putin and he resigns after mass protests. Option 2: the public feels that they are under attack and chose to stand with Putin against their enemy. I fear that option 2 is more viable than option 1. Why? With the crackdown of protests against the war, its clear that the government wants to shut down dissident voices.

While some companies have said that they will continue to pay the wages of their works, I don’t buy it. Its PR stunt or its a severance pay that the workers will get. These sanctions will result in more poverty. Most Russians most likely don’t have enough to handle unforeseen expenses. With a iPhone 11 now costing over 2000 euro’s in Russia while its around 500 euro’s in Belgium, its clear that these sanctions will impact heavily on the populace. That KFC and McDonalds leave Russia is more of a good thing for their health than anything else. Its still bad for those employees though.

In war, its the working class who suffer, who bleed, who make the most sacrifices and are the ones who end up dying. Not the rich. They will put themselves in safety. Their money is safe outside of Russia in offshore banks. The weapons manufacturers are the real victors here. If they want to change Putin’s mind, they have to go after the rich. If they will turn against Putin, this war would come sooner to an end. But by calling them oligarchs looks like they are different from the capitalists in the west. They aren’t. They are one and the same.

Russia is the 13th richest country in the world. But this will change everything. For the last 20 years Russia has resisted the west. They did sell their oil and gas but its said that they have to import a lot of things a swell when it comes to technology, etc…They also want to expand their markets as well, just as the west does. And that is where Ukraine comes in.

Who is the winner in this conflict? 

I think that with Ukraine, the western powers wanted to draw Putin into a prolonged conflict like Afghanistan was for both the USSR and NATO or Iraq was for Great Britain and the US.

Like I said before. NATO doesn’t care about Ukraine. It never did. It only played with Ukraine so that Putin would take the bait. Unfortunately he did. NATO most likely never had any intention of letting Ukraine join the alliance. Whoever wins whether it is Ukraine or Russia, they both have lost.I think that president Zelensky by now realises that the solidarity the west and NATO had with his country was on false pretences. The propaganda machines are in full swing on both sides. When people when to Syria to fight, they were deemed terrorists – and correctly so- but all of the sudden people wanted to join the fight in Ukraine- even though they aren’t Ukrainians- are not deemed terrorists but heroes. I find this strange. This war will cause a lot of PTSD’s among Ukrainians and among Russian soldiers.

Last, let’s talk about politics 

In the west, we see the same bs that we saw in 2003 when US invaded Iraq. You are either against Putin or for him. There is no middle ground. The peace movement is being marginalised. Criticism against NATO is controversial and not tolerated and put on the same level as someone saying that I’m not a racist but…

We don’t need more war mongering, more though talk. What we need now is more diplomacy to resolve this conflict as soon as possible. People don’t realise that NATO is a extension of a Imperialist powers that uses NATO to safeguard their sphere of influence and protect their markets. Russia is also doing that. They see the expansion of NATO to the east as a threat. This conflict is one years in the making and bound to happen unfortunately. While the UN couldn’t find any evidence for Putin’s claim that Russians in the Donbass region are victims of a genocide and while there aren’t any general presence of neonazi’s in Ukraine, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. The Ukrainian army does have two battalions who are known to be neonazi’s and are operating in the Donbas region. Just because Zelensky is Jewish is not proof that it isn’t there. Its there. How widespread is a big question mark at the moment.

The fact that many far righters want to join this fight, is worrisome to say the least. The far right has been organising themselves on a international level previously unseen. Them fighting in the conflict means that they are getting combat experience. Which in itself is worrisome.

In Belgium we have a far right politician Theo Francken who up till last week was known for his conservative stance that refugees should be pushed back and taken care of in their own region. But recently he went to twitter where he stated that he went to the Polish border to send some supplies. In itself a good thing. The people there need it. But its troublesome that he belongs to a party that is anti immigration like Vlaams Belang- who are basically descendants of collaborators with the Nazi’s. Even N-VA has that heritage- is all of the sudden pro refugees because they are caucasian. They even refer Ukrainians as the real war refugees and those of Syria and Afghanistan and Iraq are deemed freeloaders.Can we agree that this is troublesome to say the least?

Now that charity organisations are getting mails from single Belgian and Dutch men who want to help a intelligent, beautiful Ukrainian woman, combined with the knowledge that many far righters want to help out – could spell trouble for many Ukrainian women and children on the run. Its disgusting that this is happening now. These people want to exploit the tragedy for their own gains.

Update

Its been almost a year now since the war started. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces are digigng in and commiting attrocities. Its war after all. There are no good sides in a war. Couple of months ago, when Ukrainian military was pushing Russian forces back, that was the time to get them back to talk. But neither side wanted it and in the west, they are doing everything they can to prolong it. For them, its all about money and power. They want to shift the economic focus back to the west and the US is making a lot of money by selling weapons and their expensive gas to EU. Not to mention a lot of companies are looking towards Ukraine now and see potential when its time to rebuild the country. The fact that people on the ground are getting hurt doesn’t matter to them at all. I hope that in 2023 the war will come to an end. But i fear it will not be for 2023. This conflict is a proxy war between Russia and NATO and Ukraine doing the fighting, hurting and dying. A direct confrontation between Russia and NATO would result in the use of nuclair weapons and nobody wants that. Which is why they chose this route as a way to prevent that.

This war also showed that Russian army is not so strong and modern as previously thtought. They use tactics used in Syrian civil war and other conflicts. Bombing civilian targets will not rally people to your side. It will traumatize them for sure, but it will not help you conquering the country.Perhaps that their army is so outdated, shows that the money Putin invested in modernizing his army went somewhere else. It seems that not alot of Russians want to fight in this war and up and till now, only the minorities fought in the army. Ukraine is determined to fight off Russia and with NATO weapons and foreign fighters, they seem to be able to do just that. If and i hope that Ukraine wins the war, that they make a peaceoffering to their own citizens to put an end to the civil war and recognize Russian as a official language. After the war, those who collaborated with the Russians will be targeted for reprisals from their own fellow citizens. I hope the goverment will be able to prevent that.