Hans van Koningsbrugge, professor of Russian History and Politics at the University of Groningen, gives his commentary on the war in Ukraine every Saturday. Episode 76 today.
,,That it is one year ago on Friday that Russia invaded Ukraine was celebrated in Moscow with a big party in a football stadium. It can be. There would have been 200,000 visitors, while the capacity of the stadium is 76,000. People would have been brought there from all over Moscow. Some would be required by their employer, others would be paid for it.
The chosen singers sang to the people with patriotic songs. The soldiers were encouraged. The tenor was that it is not bad to die for the fatherland. An attempt was made to spread good news about the war. Even kidnapped children from the Donbas and Mariupol came into the picture. They are said to have been rescued by the Russians from the clutches of Ukrainian Nazis.
‘The evil West will be vanquished’
The message of this mass gathering closely echoed Putin’s speech last Tuesday. Although the ‘special military operation’ will take a long time, the Russians must be patient. In the end everything will be fine. The evil West, which wants to destroy Russian identity, will be vanquished and Ukraine will be embraced again in Russian arms after a purge of Nazi elements.
The Kremlin forgets that in 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a referendum was held in Ukraine on the future of the country. Should it become independent or not? In all regions, including Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk, the vast majority of residents voted for independence.
‘Ukraine opts for Western values’
It stings Putin that Ukraine not only wants to belong to Europe, but also opts for Western values. For him, the military operation has now turned into an identity war. The detestable Western, decadent values are opposed to the Russian values, in which the family and orthodox Christianity are central. Paradoxically, only 9 percent of Russians go to church, but the state and the church, unlike in the West, are moving together again after communism.
Ukraine is lost to the Russian world. This is unpalatable to Putin. That’s why he’s preparing for a long war.”