Russian President Vladimir Putin once said that for him the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century. That which he is preparing now is able to become a geopolitical catastrophe of the twenty-first century.
I’m not sure that in Russia they understand this.
This man was able to unite a part of society around him, convincing them that it is a revival of the greatness and power of Russia. Well, Russia really has greatness and power – the whole world admires the majestic spirit of the creators of culture. But Putin has no idea where to find what he seeks. Now, in reality, he is preparing for his country a great tragedy and a decline in power.
I can understand how much it hurts you, Russians, to look at a map of your country, gaping with offensive voids. All imperial nations endured those phantom pains. Putin promised to recover what was lost, and most of you thought it was just: Georgia was “forced into peace”; Ukraine is being “forced to love.”
Previously, sable furs were paid for Ukraine; today, according to the editor of The Economist Edward Lucas, it is more expensive: $5 billion officially, $200 for gas, and $15 billion to bribe Yanukovych.
I feel deep gratitude to the eleven people who on November 30 joined to a demonstration at the Manege Square in Moscow in support of the Ukrainian Euromaidan. It’s three more people than the number of people who came out for a protest on August 25, 1968, against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
And there’s something very symbolic that a participant of this dissident demonstration, Natalia Horbanevska, died in Paris on the eve of the demonstration, on November 29, 2013. I believe that she was the twelfth on the Manege Square, but no longer visible.
That historic demonstration then saved the honor of Russia – can a handful of people achieve the same result today?
I do not want to believe that in the vast territory of Russia only a dozen people realize that the Ukrainian Euromaidan is anti-Putin, not anti-Russian. The participants simply took the baton from all the European fighters of dictatorship: “For our freedom and yours.”
“For yours” – this is for you, Russians. Putin poses a great danger for Ukraine because he is putting it on the brink of schism and civil war. But Putin presents no less danger for Russia: with a resurgent imperial “greatness,” it will not pass through the eye of the needle of the future.
In Ukraine and Russia is reviving that Rus’, which still smoldering in Novgorod the Great, was suppressed by the oprichnina power of Tsar Ivan the Terrible. This new Rus’ is an alternative Slavic living arrangement and it is feared by Putin. But this is the alternative that could be life-saving for Russia.
Today the question is not only whether Ukraine will hold out. Today, there is also a choice for the Russian society: whether to succumb to the oprichnina desire to “punish the Khokhly,” or to deflect Cain’s sin by stopping Putin.
Please, make the right choice.
Myroslav Marynovych,
Former prisoner in Brezhnev’s camps