The fighting and destruction in Ukraine continues. The gap between Russia and NATO members is getting deeper. Also the divisions in Serbia - they were not reconciled even by joining the condemnation of the invasion in the United Nations. In all this, the Russian people have been forgotten.
On the one hand, prejudices and atavisms from the Cold War have been resurrected. Everything Russian is dangerous, anticivilizational, to say the least โ suspicious. Otherwise, I guess the citizens of Moscow or Saint Petersburg would have stopped the war. But how? If the British could not do it with mass anti-war demonstrations in London before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, why would the Russians succeed? Especially under an authoritarian government that treats the opposition and the media incomparably worse than even the regime in Serbia.
On the contrary, there are no real Russophiles, but Putinophiles. They have nothing to do with real Russian culture. It is the history of the struggle for freedom, justice, human dignity and equality, both under the tsars and under Stalin: Dostoevsky was pardoned at the funeral home, Tolstoy was excommunicated, Babel was shot, Harms died of starvation in prison... Likewise, the modernist significance is immeasurable. Russian culture. How can you imagine contemporary art without Kandinsky, Malevich, Platonov, Stravinsky...?
They mean nothing at all to Putinophiles. They are much closer to the rulers of the Romanov dynasty, Rasputin or Stalin. Although their mouths are full of American and European oppression in Africa, Asia, South America, together with Putin they despise Lenin because he "invented Ukraine". And precisely his principle about the right of every nation to self-determination, including secession, was carved into the anti-colonial struggle.
Despite the arrests and punishments, there are citizens, activists and public figures in Russia who raise their voices against the attack on Ukraine. There are also the few media that expect to be shut down at any moment just because they are doing their job professionally and fighting for peace. On Thursday, after more than 30 years of operation, radio Echo of Moscow, which had the same significance and symbolism in Putin's Russia as Radio B 92 had in Miloลกeviฤ's Serbia, was shut down.
Anyone who stood up against wars and authoritarianism in Serbia during the nineties knows how difficult a situation they are in. Also, what a personal price they pay. Their actions must never be curtailed or forgotten.
Because, just as Serbia was never Slobodan Milosevic, neither is Russia Vladimir Putin. She is on the streets and in the newsrooms of independent media.
Hang in there, brothers!
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