We are dealing with two different approaches here.
Russia: West is our teacher and West is an invader and pillager. That’s what Peter the Great saw in Swedes, from whom he encouraged Russians to learn, and then beat them by what it learns. Consequently, Russians always have this double vision. Think of Dostoevsky, who calls his heroes–Raskolnikov and Sonya — “a murderer and a harlot,” and then writes his novel, all 487 pages of it, to prove that they are much more than that, that these murderer and a harlot can be saintly as well.
Think of Tolstoy, who has amazing French characters in his War and Peace, and then allows Kutuzov to address his soldiers: “Hey lads, pity them, they are crushed and defeated. But then again, who called this f..ers here? They got what they deserve: with their face straight into shit.”
Not everyone can take this unflinching, if humane vision. Not everyone can acknowledge one’s aggressiveness, and violence, and greed and so on.
Ukrainian approach is rather different. It was shaped by the trade routes of Kiev, and free wheeling spirit of the Black Sea port, Odessa, and the location of Lviv, which lying on the cross-roads of Poland, Austro-Hungary, and Orthodox Slavs to the east.
So those Ukrainians who lost their Russian way of thinking, view the situation differently: We, Ukrainians, have poverty, misery, suffering and hatred of Russians. The West, like Germany, has guilt, but it also has money and wealth (a lot of it created by skillful use of Russian resources by the way). So let’s trade. They will give us their wealth, and we relieve them of their guilt, by allowing them to help us–poor victims, and to hate Russians — the demonic aggressors.
Wow, — says the west. What a great bargain! We always want to bomb for a good cause. We Germans have been bombing for a wrong cause for too long, but bomb we must, being rapacious and aggressive west in search of pillage and robbery and rape. So we need to bomb for a good cause. (I’ve heard a triumphant German saying it to CNN when the bombing campaign of Serbia has started). What can be better than Ukraine then. They allow us to hate and bomb, and yet, feel extremely smug, as we share, and sympathize, and give and do a right thing.
In the battle between: 1. I understand you, you are human, as as such, prone to aggression and greed, and invasions, and if you do it, we’ll hit you back. and 2: come to us, bomb, rob, and rape, because you’ll be pushing back those evil Iraqis who rip babies from the incubators, or those evil Serbs and Russians who created concentration camps for innocent victims. In the battle between one and two, the west will always choose 2.
So yes, you Russians. You can’t trade your misery for western sympathy and guilt. That’s not your way of thinking. So you better learn from the west, how to make those nuclear bombs and ultrasonic missiles better, because the west will come for you, as it always does, in its aggressive search for your natural wealth. And you better be ready to send these f…ers with their face straight into shit.
