Translation of “О наболевшем или Мой "рисовый бит" в информационной войне”
I live in Zürich. On the recent Tuesday I was part of quite an interesting discussion, that I didn’t expect to happen, and the most interesting part was the outcome, I just didn’t anticipate it to finish that way. So I joined a conversation, where one mid-age Russian woman from Murmansk, very pleasant person, just a week before that she was very kind to ask me to sit a bit further from her to avoid any chance of me getting sick because of the cough that started on that day, was telling to our colleagues from Japan, Columbia and Australia the facts that just shocked me since they sounded insanely impossible to be true, just think of them (note, that it was just after Yanukovych left the country, so couple of days before first traces of Russian occupants appeared in Crimea): “It’s a real war in Ukraine!!! Pechersk Lavra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev_Pechersk_Lavra) is plundered and destroyed! Entire families, including children, are being shot by nationalists!” I believe my reaction was a surprise with, potentially, some sounds of the disbelief in the voice, I ask her what was the source of that information, and as a response I got just incredible rough reaction: “Ah, I see that it makes you laugh, doesn’t it? I, as an opposite to you - young people that don’t have any sources, but Internet, and Ukrainian news, take this information from real people, who were witnesses of these horrors and survived. That was my sister who told me all that!”. And guess where the sister lives - in Sevastopol, town where the main source of information is Russian TV and people were taught stories about terrible western Ukrainians who cannot leave a day without thinking of doing any harm to Russian speaking people. So this is what followed: “And she (sister) told me, that THEY (nationalists) are coming and once THEY come - citizens of Sevastopol will raise and will fight to death, since they have protected their town from occupants already couple of times (during WW2 and in 19th century). I said her, that I will not wait any second, but buy ticket immediately and fly to her to help fighting for Sevastopol”. In just couple of moments she turned conversation into even worse direction: “In Ukraine West always oppresses East”, and “Anna, just say to me, do you really think that Europe (referring to EU) is ready to accept you (Ukrainians) - wild and illiterate people? No one needs you there, have you ever thought about it?” That was way too much, this was the first time in my life, when someone was saying just into my face such rude things. And it was not only me, she was trying to insult, not even my family or region I’m from, no, she was referring to the entire Ukrainian nation, as wild and illiterate. She put that much anger, hate and contempt into those words, that I just was dumbfounded.
We don’t talk to each other since, though seeing each other every day.
After that dramatic talk my sights were set on watching a Channel One. The Russian one. Have you watched it lately? Things that are being highlighted and shown to the audience on that channel have surprised and shocked me so hard I couldn’t close my eyes together. I suppose that Russians of Crimea consider this Channel One, as well as other akin Russian channels, as their main source of information, if not the only one.
Dear friends, I know that those of you who are reading this article are adequate and smart people, and it’s a bit frustrating, knowing that my words will probably not find the “ears” I want - those one who listen to the same old radio, who read the same one newspaper, who watch that only one TV-channel over and over again - those people who nowadays are coming under a severe influence and are suffering and falling for unprecedented provocations of Russian government.
My dear foreign friends, I’m asking you to pay attention to these words and to tell about it everyone you know. I would really like you, who luckily have this opportunity, to be aware of what’s happening just 2000 km away, in my native Ukraine.
If only happens, so that my words will find just one reader whom they will help, who really needs it, my work will not be vain. And I would like to say the following.
Euromaidan wasn’t about the EU or Russia. It happened because people of Ukraine got sick of those in power, who during those long years did nothing but lined their own pockets and impertinently suppressed their own people. Those who basically have plundered and tapped Ukraine’s state treasury and have stolen everything they could, only to make themselves as rich and wealthy as they are today. A living illustrations of it we’ve discovered recently, I mean the stinking rich private residences of our “beloved” President Viktor Yanukovych (who, by the way, apparently is the most successful author in the history of Ukraine - yearly he earned around $2 millions for his books) and a simple Attorney General of Ukraine, Mr. Pshonka. These two represent a very picturesque example of what one can climb (or, better to say, where one can fall) in his personal and unbounded ambitions, especially when you literally own the entire country. Here, here and here you can see what I am talking about, will put here just a couple of highlights:
Hundred of people had to die, being killed in action, thousands had to get hurt in the fights and under fire. Now those old government is in the past, but nevertheless problems, it seems, have just begun.
Developments that have taken place on Maidan and in the recent months have been extremely violent and scared into grey hair the entire nation. No one in the government was paying any attention to the peaceful demonstrations. Then activists have burned the bus and hundreds of tires in the very heart of our capital, they’ve built a real catapult, they’ve thawed a lot of ice and snow and have taken to pieces a lot of stone-block pavement; Berkut didn’t accept the side of the nation and was still complying with the bloody orders from the top, that led to deaths of innocent people, that were just shot by snipers.
It’s painfully to watch those videos with a naked cossack in a sunny winter frost being humiliated and kicked by “men in uniform”, or those where people are running for their life and still being catched and kicked by those in uniforms or even shut into a back or a head by snipers. Unfortunately this is all true and has really happened.
Yes, very active role in those recent events in Kiev and regions took members of so called “Right Sector”. These people were in a forceful mood and on the warpath, yet stayed patriotic and nationalistic. Yes, frankly speaking there are some weirdos among them, like that guy Sasha “Belyj” from Rivne city, who walks about with guns and knives, twitches politics’ ties and nobody says anything to him. I do not get him, but it happened so that nowadays there are more important things to care about in the country.
A wholesale slaughter happened to the Lenin’s monuments all around the country. That is true. Frankly, I don’t support this either. And of course Lenin has nothing to do with the current situation, it’s just that his monuments are too obvious incarnations of the “bad” regime, and surely when speaking about a revolution there is nothing worse than a rebellious crowd.
There are some other examples of extremely bad decisions being made recently. In my native Zakarpattia region a customs chief was tied to a pole ‘cause he’s been exposed as a bribee. In Ivano-Frankivsk city a chief of a local market was forced to his knees with some unclear demands, and that was also because people revealed that he was sticky fingered. Actually one can say, that a lot of those, who earned major wealth in Ukraine, have done it by dishonest means. Everyone knows that, and have always knew, but only now the most unfortunate of those men of property had to become Youtube stars. In these particular stories crowd was involved as well, that sometimes can lead to a really bad consequences.
The Party of Regions has begun to lose its registered members, its regional representations began to fall apart. Yes, some of its offices were set on fire all around the country. But so were numerous cars with Lwiw registration plates in bedroom communities of Kiev itself.
And finally our Prime Minister Azarov has run away to Austria, finally our President Yanukovych has disappeared and is today on the wanted list. All the “old” ministers resigned from their duties, all the “new” ones were assigned. A lot of them took an active part in Maidan developments. Ukraine became a parliamentary republic once again, we got a “fresh” acting deputy of the President of Ukraine, politics unanimously have chosen the new Prime Minister. Then Yulia Tymoshenko was release out of prison. Fine. And then something out of the top of one’s head happened - very premature decision to take away some extended rights from national languages of minorities (specially Russian), in the last 2 years Ukraine had a law that allowed Russian-speaking regions to have Russian language as a second official in addition to Ukrainian, so that was reconsidered by our politicians, and they said “Yes” to it. This law was never signed by an a.d. President, so it’s not legal neither approved, but even a simple voting was enough to fire up our long-suffering nation again. When I first read about it, I thought that nobody, but delitants, are sitting today in our Parliament, and it made me very said. Of course, Russian-speaking people from south-eastern part of Ukraine think that something very strange is happening in the capital: politicians are asking for advice a rebellious crowds from the west wing on Maidan, then quickly assign inexperienced executives to the key positions in Parliament and now they forbid us to speak Russian? I mean, it was a huge mistake and completely not a thing you start with your governing when country is that unstable and so close to be bankrupt.
And it didn’t take long for the leaders of Russia to come up with the response in Crimea, where Russian Black Sea fleet is based… Note, that Yanukovych was entirely pro-Russian president, as opposed to the new Ukrainian government, that is still not recognized as a legit by Russia. So, unknown, armed people wearing masks (in reality, most likely, Russian militaries that are just staging a show) hijack Parliament of Crimea and some of the airports. Russian “Channel One” starts broadcasting scenes, where huge crowds of people are filling the streets in order to demonstrate their will in joining Russia by waving tricolor (Russian) flags and shouting “Russia!”. It took just couple of moments for the hijacked Parliament to vote for a new head of the Crimean government, to be said, party he is the leader of, gained “whole” 4% of votes on the most recent local elections in Crimea. And he almost immediately officially asks Putin for help (if you follow closely, he is asking for a help for protecting from Russian militaries that are just making a show pretending to be unknown hijackers and violators of a peace). Duma ( lower house of Federal Assembly of Russia) in a short time, just by chance, happens to vote for the low that simplifies a procedure of joining new lands to the territory of Russian Federation, and another one, that makes it easier to get Russian citizenship. Meanwhile, Federation Council (upper house of Federal Assembly of Russia), grants a right to President Putin for using troops in Ukraine. And, though still not recognized by Russia as a fact of its militaries entering Ukraine, “unknown” helicopters and aircrafts are crossing the border, warships are coming closer to the Ukrainian shore, even more armed men in the masks appear in the towns.
Thousands of people in Donetsk and Kharkiv fill streets and join Crimean relay shouting “Russia!”, though in couple of hours it gets clear that the main part in all this action was played by people holding passports of neighbouring Russian regions - Belgorod and Rostov, that “just happen” to be admiring these cities as “tourists”. At the end, Russian tricolor replaces Ukrainian flag on the main official building in Kharkiv. Guy, who made it, appears to be citizen of Moscow, according to his profile in social network, he even shared a photo of him climbing the building and replacing the flag. No surprise, that most of the comments, he had pleasure to read afterwards, didn’t contain any single word I can quote in this innocent article.
Meanwhile Russian Channel One contains its show of “real” eyes-opening information claiming that 140 thousands of refugees from Ukraine seeking for a protection are queueing on the border between Ukraine and Russia. To be honest, they even provided the evidence by showing live video from the border, see below one screenshot from it:
And sure, it doesn’t matter at all, that “ШЕГИНІ” (“Shegyni”) is a crossing point between Ukraine and Poland! That is only 1500 kilometers away from, say, Nehoteevka - crossing point between Ukraine and Russia in Belgorod region, that at that moment had the following incredibly long queue:
Russians in Moscow itself have participated on the 2nd of March in the acts of protest against the decision of their government to send troops to Crimea. Those meetings were suppressed by the police and hundreds of participants were simply arrested. In this video you can see it very clearly.
Isn’t it obvious that all of this doesn’t hold water? Again, nobody in Ukraine wants to go and conquer Crimea, nobody wants to make Russians speak Ukrainian language, “benderivci” or “zapadenci” (affronting nicknames that were given to the people from western Ukraine) in a first place - they are happy to leave in their own regions and especially nowadays they are occupied by completely other problems. None of those people goes to Crimea to be in charge of it and no one wants to occupy it. Russian government is in no need to protect Russians of Crimea, simply because nobody threatens them! This kind of “protection” is extremely dangerous, ‘cause it leads to war. Please, come to your senses!
As a result, a war effort has been declared in Ukraine, that means all the capable men are to come to the assembling points all around the country to get further instructions and then what? Into the battle? My husband, my father, my brother, tens of my friends, mathematicians and programmers, millions of good and warm-hearted people now will be forced to wear a uniform and go to an actual war? You know, I am not yet a mother - I cannot imagine what do those poor women feel today, hearts of millions of mothers are dying within them today.
Yes, political and economical situation in Ukraine is catastrophical. Seems like once again wrong people have came to power, the ones who don’t know how to cope or what to do with it. But for God’s sake, did our grandparents fought for the country to no purpose, so we have to do the same today? Our parents have survived one dissolution of a country 25 years ago, they’ve outlived a severe default and a commodity deficit once - do we really want them to experience all of that one more time?
