The idea to ponder what constitutes a pro-Russian political activist occurred to me while reading a recent article on Karlin’s blog about the rampant censorship of opposition media in Ukraine…
Anatoly Karlin made this statement:
Since the start of this year, the Ukraine has mounted an accelerating campaign to shut down all “pro-Russia” (apostrophes because more often than not they’re not so much explicitly pro-Russian, as merely less anti-Russian and more oppositionist than the mainstream) media.
Well, the climate in many East European countries is such that any conciliatory tone towards Russia is considered pro-Russian. That is, only hysterical Russophobia will do. You must believe any accusation towards Russia no matter how ridiculous that is. You must believe that not doing business with Russia is great thing. Otherwise, you will be branded pro-Russian, and will be cast out of polite society.
However, are any of these people branded pro-Russian any good for Russia? I have already questioned the pro-Russianness of Ukrainian political parties earlier on this blog. I am someone, who reads the Peremogi blog daily, and there is a central thesis there, no pro-Russian parties in Ukraine, and nobody Russia should trust. Well, I think the Russian official circles have already taken the memo to heart judging by attitude they take towards the various individuals branded as pro-Russian in Ukraine.
Here is something I found recently on the Peremogi. Recently there was a vote in the Ukrainian parliament on “addressing the UN to ask the countries of the World not to recognise the upcoming Russian parliamentary elections”. It was a classic ritualistic spitting in direction of Russia but let’s see how the pro-Russians voted?
None of the members of the Opposition Platform for Life voted against this motion. You would think that friends of Russia would vote against? So, whenever hysterical Russophobes accuse someone of being pro-Russian, the Russians should not take that at face value. Instead, before you call anyone “pro-Russian” ask these questions.
If he is Ukrainian or Belarusian, does he believe that his respective nations are a part of one Russian nation that was divided by the enemies of Russia? Or does he believe notions such as Ukrainians are more European than Russians, or more Slavic? Does he ever express those ideas in public?
The above is a fundamental of any pro-Russian sentiment among Eastern Slavs. You may further ask if they desire any integration with Russia. You might surprised how many of the pro-Russian start blathering something about sovereignty or neutrality. The latter is no pro-Russian sentiment.
If he is from the former eastern block, does he believe in normalizing trade relations with Russia? But a grade further would be, does he want any further economic integration with the Russian Federation?
Many of the Russophiles in Eastern Europe are nationalists and very much about self reliance, many support exiting the EU, and would not trade it for a Russian led union. And I am one of these.
Also, opposition to the glorification of Nazi collaborationists and defence of the Russian language in Ukraine are rather domestic issues than they are pro-Russian positions. Most Ukrainians use the Russian language daily, and most have ancestors that have fought the Nazis. Naturally, there is a part of the population that is receptive to such slogans. But anyone taking up these issues should not be automatically viewed as pro-Russian. Alexei Honcharenko once supported rights for the Russian language, but he switched sides after the Maidan.
It is without mentioning that any pro-Russian movement in Ukraine in the last 30 years was hopelessly unsuccessful and nothing worthy of Russian support…
So dear readers, recently I have encountered reports that they have so called language patrols in Kazakhstan. That is when activists come to a shop and demand the shopkeeper serves them in the national language of the given ethnic bantoustan instead of Russian. Scenes like this were common in Ukraine but Kazakhstan was off the radar for a while.
The local elites however are no strangers to playing the anti-Russian card. The language patrols in Kazakhstan get a police cover and are clearly sponsored by the government. Attacks on national minorities are a common scene in weak postcolonial regimes, it is a way of asserting authority. Think Idi Amin in Uganda, and the Asians, or Adolf Hitler and the Jews. This is an old tactic…
Russophobia is a serious problem that concerns every post-Soviet nation and the former Comecon countries too. Here is an old video of Dmitry Medvedev, then Russian president, complaining that Lukashenko employed anti-Russian rhetoric in pre-election campaign. Russia needs to react severely to any such displays, her honour depends on it. As of writing, there is some indication that the organiser of the Kazakh language patrols has fled to Georgia, it seems the Kazakh authorities came to their senses. So what are the strategies available to Moscow?
1) Well, I will turn to an article by Mikhaïl Delyagin. One of the obvious things is to ban the people engaging in Russophobic campaigns from entering Russia. This is more effective than you might think. I have observed it first hand, activists from the 2014 Maidan in Kiev that have just yesterday shouted anti-Russian slogans, have become gastarbeiters in Russia a while later. Far from being true to their creed, Russophobes aren’t against making money in Russia. Russia is by far the most formidable economy in the post-Soviet space. Russia is a true superpower.
We may call this first method “Idrak” after Idrak Mirzalizade, a stand up comedian of Azerbaijani origin, who happens to be a Belorussian citizen. He was recently made persona non grata in RF for his Russophobic jokes. He lived in Russia because he was avoiding military service in Belarus and Azerbaijan. According to recent reports, Idrak left Russia for Turkey via Belarus.
2) However, the above strategy is something that is readily practiced. Think the many foreign journalists, who did not have their visas extended. I am not certain there needs to be another law on the books for that. Instead, I believe that instances of Russophobia need to be monitored more carefully and this should be established by law.
Delyagin also suggests that businesses employing known Russophobes ought to be expelled from Russian market. This is a good idea but this would require a careful surveillance of the phenomenon of Russophobia on many levels. Something like a Russian version of ADL with an even broader reach.
3) A little diplomatic effort can make wonders. The Russian state still has a lot of influence they may exercise. Some efforts on the level of intergovernmental communication can make wonders.
4) Divesting from notoriously Russophobic regimes in Eastern Europe by building bypassing infrastructure. In this department Russia has made tremendous strides. Russia built a port in Ust’ Luga on the Baltics bypassing the need to use Latvian ports, and Russia also built two lines of the Nord Stream to bypass Ukraine and Poland in its transit of gas. This is having a profoundly beneficial effect on the budgets and infrastructure of these countries, just as what they deserve.
I am not an insider, just a casual observer, so I hope the Russian government takes this seriously.
Guys, remember one thing, no Russian success will ever be forgiven by rabidRussophobes...
I personally do not watch the Olympics, and do not cheer any of the teams. I am working over the summer season and find it difficult to even update my blog, let alone enjoy the Olympics. But even I was not saved the display of Russophobia towards successful Russian athletes.
Even though their country has been punished, some Russian competitors in Tokyo are being tarred with the brush of a doping scandal that has nothing to do with them. It seems some people can’t handle their mere presence in Tokyo.
Russian world number two Daniil Medvedev reacted angrily on Wednesday when asked by a reporter in the Japanese capital: “Are Russian athletes carrying a stigma of cheaters in these games and how do you feel about it?”
“You should be embarrassed of yourself,” Medvedev fired back.
“I think you should [remove] him from the Olympics, I don’t wanna see him again.”
I personally believe that the so called doping scandal was a contrived conspiracy in a long line of anti-Russian provocations, many of which have a very weak grounding in actual facts. Think the Browder-Magnitsky affair, or the more recent Petrov and Boshirov adventures in rural Czech Republic. Maybe there was an instance of doping in Russia but the media in the West turned it into a state sponsored doping campaign. Because literally everything in the Russophobic narrative is directed against the Russian state, and the Russian president Vladimir Putin, the latter is the main target of this hysteria.
How many time did you hear a Russophobe say that he is against Putin, not the Russian people. Quite frankly, this statement is an oxymoron because arguably, the life of Russian people has only but improved under Putin. Most of them want Russia to be neutralized by internal problems. And internal problems will eventually mean the decline of Russian sport.
US swimmer Ryan Murphy suggested the Olympic 200m backstroke final “probably wasn’t clean” after Evgeny Rylov beat him to pick up his second gold medal of the Tokyo Games for the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team.
Having already scooped 100m backstroke gold earlier in the week, Rylov stormed to the 200m title at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Friday in an Olympic record time of 1 minute 53.27 seconds.
American swimmer Murphy – the defending champion from the Rio Games five years ago – was forced to settle for silver with a time of 1 minute 54.15 seconds.
Britain’s Luke Greenbank won bronze, finishing just over half a second further back.
It is evident that these swimmers are victims of their own domestic Russophobic campaign, and cannot accept their loss. As far as I am concerned, Russia needs to learn to live with these provocations because eventually, they will come of them as winners…
Dear readers, what a text I have discovered, it almost confirms the message of one of the videos I uploaded to my YouTube channel recently, (check it out if you have a command of Russian and Ukrainian)…
A Ukrainian [person]: My relative lives in the Urals, Russia. And he asks: “What do you want from America and Biden?! I thought a bit and replied…
I want American military bases on Russian borders. In Lugansk, in Donetsk, in Sevastopol, and in Simferopol. That the US 6th fleet may feel at home.
That the strategic aviation may fly, bombers, fighters, tankers… And that the AWACS may fly over and shit on the heads of enemies.
That US nuclear weapons and the boot of the NATO soldier, to the maximum level, so that Putin may shit himself from the anxiety.
That our military may learn from their military, for a fully fledged alliance and bubble gum. You do not have to fight for us, we can fight already. For us, with us does not matter. We need to become frightening so that one would piss himself just from seeing us.
We need Murican judiciary because our judiciary is comatose.
Also, customs and fiscal policy should be transplanted because ours is comatose.
May American capital enter and with their capitalists, managers, technicians. I have worked with Westerners and I have worked with compatriots. I will say, the Americans, the British, the Canadians are welcome. And our pseudo-proletarian dung should learn from them. Blablala…
I hope dear readers, that you liked this little translation. And would you like to defend Ukraine?
With 6%, people from the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, lead in the rating of property buyers in the Russian capital, Moscow. Kiev is followed by St. Petersburg, the citizens of which made 3.8% of the buyers. 99% of this property was homes.
Imagine for a minute, a Western correspondent would pose for a cover in an uniform of an openly neo-Nazi paramilitary unit that is listed as a hate group by many Western governments and institutions. You will never see that! But with Eastern Slavs anything goes as long as they oppose Lukashenko and Putin.
Also, I do not get that the garden variety of demshiza, be it among Russian liberals, in the Belarusian opposition, the Western handlers of this twerp, did not see this. It is not like he made any secret of his involvement with Neonazis.
Westerners reading this, would you like anyone like this to come to power in your country? Why do you want the same for Belarus?
Also, clueless Westerners that are screeching about a “journalist” being abducted. NEXTA was not just a news site, it coordinated protests, called for killing cops, and doxed the cops. I know, the goals justify the means…
Update: The Western press again tries to hush up the topic of Nazis in Ukraine.
Number of Blue Checkmarks, and other guardians of the narrative, have immediately tried to call the reports about Protasevych’s Azov engagement a disinformation. But his involvement with the Neonazis is now solidly established.
Hat tip: Mark Ames Fuck me, the State Department has literally employed a Neonazi, and now we should be concerned about a character assassination. Hey Muricans, do not support Nazis and we will have nothing to talk about.
From the olden days, the Holy See in Rome sought to conquer the Holy Rus’. Alexander Nevsky had to repel an invasion of the Teutonic Knights but there was a much more fearsome foe than the knights, the Rzeczpospolita, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Both constitutive realms of this empire began expanding their domains into Rus’ already in the fourteenth century with the seizure of Halychyna by the Kingdom of Poland. Coincidently, a gene test my brother did shows we are descended from the Lithuanians that conquered Rus’ and there is family legend about a “Polish” ancestry on my Russian side.
There was a difference in faith, while the Westerners answered to the Pope, Rus’ answered to the Eastern Churches and eventually, Moscow became free of Constantinople following the Ottoman conquest, and the only rightful spiritual authority in Rus’. Fearing this Muscovite influence, the Polish masters of Ukraine decided to bring the Orthodox Churches under Roman Catholic control. In 1595 at the Union of Brest, the bishops of Little and White Russia under Rzeczpospolita accepted Roman domination. Several decades have passed and a rebellion erupted in Little Russia, which saw the Cossacks swear fealty to the Russian Tsar. This has plunged Ukraine into a destructive period known as the Ruin, which resolved itself really only in the eighteenth century with the Russian Empire coming to dominate the entirety of Little Russia, and the neutralisation of the Rzeczpospolita.
But unfortunately, the Russian Empire failed to take Halychyna in the division of Poland. Halychyna, or Galicia as it is also known, is a part of Rus. West of Lvov, there lies a town called Rava Rus’ka, that’s where Rus’ begins and it goes all the way to Vladivostok. Halychyna fell under the Austrian rule, and the Uniate Church survived there. This later served as the nucleus out of which will rise Ukrainian nationalism. Starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Austria-Hungary, as the Habsburg realms came to be known, entered into alliance with the German Empire, the Russian Empire joined France in an Entente. The Habsburgs became enemies of Russia.
Maxim Sandovych
Austria was faced with a problem of Russians on its territory. The Austrians viewed so called Russophillism of many of the inhabitants of Halychyna with suspicion. Thousands of people from Halychyna made annual pilgrimage to the Pochayevskaya Lavra, an Orthodox monastery right across the border from Austrian Halychyna in the Russian Empire. The Austrian authorities began repressing the local Russophiles. Maxim Sandovych, an Orthodox covert from the Uniate Church was tortured to death by the Austrian authorities prior to the First World War. After the Russian defeat by the Central Powers in 1915, the Austrians have interned the Russian population in concentration camps in Terezín in Bohemia, and in Thalerhof in Styria. Wikipedia has this to say about Thalerhof:
Terezín became the site of a genocide again during WWII, when the Jews were interned there.
Simultaneously with the repression, the Austrians have supported a development of a Ukrainian identity that would be different from Russian. Remember dear readers, national identities are always imposed from above and people can always be reprogrammed. Polish nobility long toyed with the Ukrainian idea. According to Mikhail Onufrienko, a blogger from Kharkov that now lives in Crimea in exile, the idea to rename the South Western part of Rus’ into Ukraine originated already in the sixteenth century with the Jesuit envoy, Antonio Possevino. Part of the reason the Polish rebellions against Russian rule of the nineteenth century failed was because the Russian peasants didn’t go along with their Polish masters. Many of these Poles and early adepts of the Ukrainian national idea fled to Austrian Halychyna, where they continued their work with Austrian support.
A good example of the Austrian support for Ukrainian nationalism is Mikhailo Hrushevsky, who was given a cushy job of a professor in Lvov and a hefty grant to write Ukrainian history, a historical conception that removes Ukraine from the common Russian history. If you were to write the true history of Ukraine, you would have to start with Nikolay Kostomarov, Ivan Franko, the afore mentioned Hrushevsky, and not somewhere deep in the past, like in the Cossack period. The Cossacks referred to themselves as Russians. I would not even speak much about Shevchenko, who also identified as Russian. But Hrushevsky did just that, relabelled them all as Ukrainians. I call the conception that Ukraine emerged out of Ukrainian nationalism, which was heavily supported by the enemies of Russia, “a short history of Ukraine.”
By the First World War, there was a sizeable community of newly created Ukrainians in Halychyna. The first time the nationality “Ukrainian” appeared officially was in 1916, when the future Emperor Charles I inspected the troops in Halychyna, and declared everyone in the camp to be Ukrainian. After the revolution in Russia, the Communists, who were opposed to Russian nationalism made the decision to break down the Russian nation by employing the Austrian project, and began a programme of mass creating the Ukrainians. For this purpose, they brought many teachers from Halychyna, including the aforementioned Mikhailo Hrushevsky. Russia’s Ukrainian headache is a bolshevik legacy.
Early Ukrainian nationalism was very much centred around the Uniate Church, the Austrians viewed the papists as loyal citizens. Ukrainism was therefore an extension of the previous Union, the Union of Brest. In more recent times an idea of a united Europe appeared, and since the 1990s, the European Union is bringing these ideas into reality. But parallel with the European Union that we all know from the European Parliament, and the European Commission, there is also a spiritual union and the ideological founder of European integration, the Pan-European Union.
The importance of union with Rome has slightly diminished in recent times with the decline of Catholicism and religiosity in the West, and the centre of control gravitated eventually to Brussels. However, there is a lot of “Habsburg” influence on the symbolic basis of the EU. You see, the Pan-European Union has given the European Union all of its symbols. The circle of twelve stars:
The twelve stars symbolise the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and the number 12 stands for completion and perfection. Note the Cross, as if indicating an inheritance from the Roman Catholic project. The secular EU, and the European Council of course do not have the cross in their flag. Furthermore, the anthem of the European Union, the Ode to Joy, was adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in the 1970s on the suggestion made in 1955 by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, a son of a Bohemian Nobleman and an upperclass Japanese gaijin chaser, the founder and the first head of the Pan-European Union. Now check out the Ode to Joy on the Euromaidan, they even created new updated lyrics for it in Ukrainian. After Coudenhove-Kalergi, the head of the Pan-European Union was Otto von Habsburg.
Petr Fiala, the current head of the Czech Civic Democrats with Berndt Posselt, the current leader of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmanschaft, and Otto von Habsburg at a Pan-European meeting in Moravia. Habsburgofilia is strong for some reason in the Czech Lands.
It seems like the Austrian nobility found itself a new tool of domination. They have switched Catholicism for European integration. Ukraine suffers a new period of strife currently, Ruin 2.0, caused by a desire for another Union, as expressed in the Cargo Cult festival, the Euromaidan. Ukrainians seem again victims of some Austrian voodoo. And the EU is not even able to make Ukraine a candidate for membership.
Don’t be a cuck, don’t fall under the spell of an Austrian voodoo. Although, I have to say many adepts of Ukrainism are also adepts of another Austrian voodoo, created by the arch-opponent of Coudenhove-Kalergi.
A small prehistory. Simulating the work of a government, the President of Ukraine, Zelensky decided to compile a list of crime bosses that the National Security Council will enact sanctions against…
Volunteer Chechens looting a store…
Fist scandals surrounding the list are beginning to come to the surface. Chechens from the battalion of Sheikh Mansur that fought in the Donbas appeared there. This army unit was wild for a long time and did not answer to civil command. Outside the warzone, they have had a number of criminal episodes.
I am sorry but this fucked up and zrada in one cup. And I must say this government has stepped over all red lines.
Together with human rights defenders we have dissected the list of names, allegedly being the heads of criminal organisations, and that have received sanctions from the security council and Zelensky. Well, these bastards have brought into the list Chechens that have fought on the side of Ukraine against Russian aggression. They have put them on the list to extradite them to Russia. They are already wanted by the FSB. Do you know who they are, the commander Muslim Ceberloevsky, #632 in the security council list, and the chief of staff of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, Muslim Idrisov, whi is #646 in Zelensky’s list of people to be sanctioned. Salman Saynaroev is #650. There are other volunteer fighter, whom are wanted by the Kremlin.
I have received information that the “sanctions of the security council” have been directed against out brothers in arms from the volunteer battalion of Sheikh Mansur, our Chechnyan brothers.
I would like you to give as much hype as you can to this astounding fact!
I am suspecting, Kremlin agents that have infiltrated into the Ukrainian security forces and the government are engaged in an operation to destabilise the situation in the country with the aim to expand the area of aggression and full on invasion of Ukraine.
That why the agents of the Kremlin have inserted into the list of thiefs, bandits, anti-Ukrainian elements, people who have fought side by side with us, and walked the road of War with us in 2014, they have defended our freedom and independence.
I am warning the government: We will not allow our brothers to be extradited to the enemy…
If we are to use force to defend them, we are ready…
I am hoping on the patriotic, and pro-state opinion of the secretary of the security council and the officers of SBU and the Ministry of Interior!
The vyshyvanka is a traditional embroidered shirt or tunic warn in all of the Russias. It is traditional to Belarus, Greater Russia, and Ukraine but only in Ukraine did this become a national garment that even has its own holiday. In Russia, only ultraconservative weirdoes wear this. This is literally medieval cosplay kind of clothing. It probably became popular first in Western Ukraine around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and it had a lot to do with the local Ukrainian nationalists LARPing as Cossacks. In the post-Soviet days, this fetish has infected the rest of Ukraine because the government of Ukraine likes promoting the culture of West Ukrainian nationalists…
But something went wrong:
The president, Zelensky wore a Russian style kosovarotka. And the kosovarotka is well, Greater Russian…
It is easy to be a hero in the safety of a peace zone, isn’t it boys?
The following is a dialogue between Masi Nayyem, a Kiev based lawyer, and a brother to Mustafa Nayyem, and Yuri Butusov, who was described by the Rutgers Professor, Alexander Motyl as the best military analyst. I am not certain Motyl knows what he is talking about. Mustafa Nayyem’s historical significance was calling the first demonstration of the Euromaidan, otherwise he ain’t shit, just like the rest of the Maidan heroes.
It extremely hard to comprehend that we are just standing still and waiting. Because expectations in the end (the sum of its parts) only lead to greater loss of human lives. A rhetorical question: if we decided to attack the Russian Federation, would there be fewer casualties in total?
Because personally, I am only waiting for a command of the Commander in Chief. May they make this decision soon.
Good Soldier Nayyem
Yuri Butusov
We do not need to attack the Russian Federation. We need to take back what is ours and win in the Donbas.
Masi Nayyem
Yura, that’s akin to painting a wall on a rotten wall. They will attack again and again. We will have to take it back again. What is the point?
