As a Ukrainian, I don’t know exactly what I feel about America’s strikes on Iran.
Let me explain.
1/7
As a person who believes in democracy and human rights, I am sure that a country like Iran should not be allowed to have nukes.
My people have seen firsthand what happens when a fascist dictatorship has nukes — this leads to unpunished evil and more violence, not less.
2/7
I also think there is no place for moral justification of Iran’s regime. It’s inhumane and evil.
Many Ukrainians were murdered by Iran’s drones and rockets supplied to Russia.
Iran’s current regime deserves a brutal destruction as much as Russia deserves one.
3/7
I also can’t help feeling bitter.
So this is what having the US as your ally looks like. Huh.
America’s escalation concerns and dancing around Russia since 2014 look like a thick layer of excuses covering a very basic truth.
4/7
The truth being that the US never really saw an enemy in Russia and an ally in Ukraine.
That it was more afraid of Russia losing the war than it genociding a European nation of 40 million out of existence.
This stings a lot.
5/7
This is especially painful since Trump has spent the last 5 months finding new ways to blame Ukraine for the war and paint Putin as a friend.
There is no moral neither geopolitical difference between defeating Iran and defeating Russia. They’re both evil.
6/7
Yet my country is allowed to be bombed by Russia every freaking day for more than 3 years now with America becoming friendlier to the Kremlin war criminals with every child murdered in their sleep in Kyiv.
So yes, I am bitter and I don’t know what to feel. That’s all.
7/7
Meanwhile, this is a residential building in Kyiv from after night’s Russian drone and ballistic attack.
We are yet to see what kind of deal Trump strikes with Putin.
But it’s clear what kind of strategy the US is pursuing: Trump wants to reach some form of ceasefire, possibly get some juicy rare mineral deals out of Ukraine and be fully done with this part of the world.
1/9
No strategic deterrence of an increasingly hostile adversary.
No support for a democracy under attack.
Zero care for the security of America’s biggest trade partners in the region – partners it had pledged to defend for decades.
2/9
With America’s full or partial withdrawal from Ukraine, there’s only one path left that ensures my home survives the next decade: the revival of Europe.
Something’s changing on the maps
of Europe right now.
It’s subtle change that only a trained eye can see.
As a Ukrainian, I never had the privilege of not noticing what the map of Europe looked like in every book or movie. On too many of those maps, Ukraine wasn’t included. 1/
Ukraine’s absence always communicated a bitter sense of invisibility. Here I was, sitting in Kyiv, a capital of a dynamic democracy bordering four EU countries.
And yet, apparently, I was not in Europe. Together with my forty million compatriots, I was stuck in a non-place.
2/
Borders mean much more to the people who inhabit them, and Ukrainians are one of Europe’s key border folk.
We have always been, as Serhiy Plokhy put it, “the gates of Europe”: from the spread of Indo-Europeans to the Mongolian invasion and to modern Russian aggression.
3/
My hot take: Ukraine’s Maidan was a pretty standard pro-democratic revolution for Central/Eastern Europe.
Similar revolts led to democracy fully prevailing in other countries — and didn’t lead to wars and mass devastation.
Do you know why? One word: Russia.
1/
When pro-democracy movements swept Central/Eastern Europe in the 1980s/1990s, Soviet Union was in decline and then Russia was deep in internal crises.
So these nations could peacefully sort their politics out and transition into western democracies.
Ukraine wasn’t so lucky.
2/
Georgia and Ukraine had their democratic turning points exactly when Russia was fully back into its usual autocratic empire state — so our revolutions were met with direct military aggression from Russia in 2008 and 2014 respectively.
3/
I know some are getting tired of the Russians at War movie scandal at @TIFF_NET
I get it.
I don’t like canceling stuff — especially when there are more practical ways to help Ukraine (like helping its armed forces).
But this is an exception.
This is a teachable moment.
🧵
The backlash against the funding and promotion of Trofimova’s Russians at War movie by Canadian institutions is not caused by hurt feelings or anti-Ru censorship.
It’s caused by western institutions getting easily exploited by Russian propaganda campaigns — which has to stop.
2/
As of today, here’s how the situation looks:
Trofimova, who spent 7 years working for Kremlin’s top propaganda network, got hundreds of thousands of Canada’s public money to film a movie showing Russian soldiers in ordinary, empathetic light.
3/
Seeing the fate of Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Maryinka and other towns makes you wonder: why would anyone kill a city? Isn’t occupation enough for Moscow?
The answer also holds the key to understanding Russia's logic of this war.
🧵1/
Killing a city is a lot of work that leaves you with an absurd result: a blank space on the map. Nothing in place of something.
So much discipline, intention and overtime work just to bleach a limited land area. This begs the question: Why?
Slavenka Drakulić had the answer.
2/
The Croatian journalist had a similar question when she wrote about Old Bridge (Stari Most), a 436-year-old bridge in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was destroyed by artillery of the Croatian Army in 1993.
When the protests were just starting as student movements, we would tie blue-yellow ribbons on our backpacks and coats to be more visible and promote our cause everywhere in Kyiv.
The police figured it out and started targeting us one by one.
1/6
The following week, numerous videos of police harassing people on the streets and even picking them from public transport popped up.
With the unleashed violence, the pro-Yanukovych minority and undercover cops caught up: people got attacked for wearing ribbons.
2/6
In Maidan circles, people were advised to stay in larger groups or hide their ribbons in public for personal safety.
Again: Ukrainian citizens living in Kyiv couldn’t wear ribbons the color of their state flag in public.
The anti-Ukrainian nature of the regime was clear.
3/6